THE VALLEY OF FLOWERS - FRANK SMYTHE

THE VALLEY OF FLOWERS

FRANK SMYTHE

Flowers

High in the Himalayan ranges of Garhwal, India, in the state of Uttaranchal
lies an enchanted valley. In 1931, Franks. Srnythe - mountaineer, explorer,
botanist, romantic and much else — chanced upon this valley with its
colourful fairy land of flowers. Entranced, he named it the Valley of
Flowers, He returned from England to visit it again in 1937.

This book is an absorbing account of Smythe's discovery subsequent visit.
Now world famous the Valley of Flowers - its glory, peace and mysterious
beauty unspoilt since Smythe's time - continues to lure adventurers.

Complete with maps, this is the most authentic account of the Valley of
Flowers.

Along with the Valley, Smythe also presents the gripping story of his
encounter and pursuit of the abominable snowman, and paints a vivid
picture of the brave porters who accompanied him, the people he met on his
travels, places around the valley his own and attempts at Himalayan peaks.

Written in the lively, sensitive, imaginative style associated with Smythe, this
rare book would be of great interest and value to mountaineers, explorers
botanists, gardeners, naturalists, photographers, travellers and give delight
to the lay reader.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

I WISH here to thank many kind friends for their help and generosity, and
especially my wife who was indefatigable in assisting me with the
preparations for the expedition. Some I have mentioned in the text; of others,
I must especially mention Messrs. Huntley & Palmer, who supplied and
shipped 80 lbs. of their excellent biscuits ; Kodak Ltd., who supplied
photographic materials ; Messrs. A. Wander Ltd., who supplied “Ovaltine”
and “Ovaltine” choco-late. In India, I am indebted to Mr. Temple, the Purser
of the S.S. “ Corfu,” for the preservation of my botanical specimens ; to Mr.
C. E. Boreham of the Army and Navy Stores, Bombay, the generous,
efficient friend of previous Himalayan expeditions ; to Mr. Wears Taylor,
the Superintendent of Posts and Telegraphs at Naini Tal ; to the Forestry
Depart-ment, who kindly allowed me to use the Forest Bungalow at
Ranikhet; to the Cawnpore Woollen Mills, who supplied porters’ clothing at
a generous discount; and to Messrs. Spencer & Co. of Calcutta, who
supplied a quantity of excellent food at a very moderate price.

CHAPTER I

THE VALLEY OF FLOWERS

THIS is the story of four happy months spent amidst some of the noblest
and most beautiful mountains of the world. Its inception dates back to 1931.

In that year Kamet, a mountain 25,447 feet high, situated in the Garhwal
Himalayas, was climbed by a small expedition of six British mountaineers of
whom I was one. After the climb we descended to the village of Gamsali in
the Dhauli Valley, then crossed the Zaskar Range, which separates the upper
Dhauli and Alaknanda Valleys, by the Bhyundar Pass, 16,688 feet, with the
intention of exploring the mountainous region at the sources of the two
principal tributaries of the Ganges, the Alaknanda and Gangotri Rivers.

The monsoon had broken and the day we crossed the pass was wet, cold
and miserable. Below 16,000 feet rain was falling, but above that height
there was sleet or snow. A bitter wind drove at us, sheeting our clothing with
wet snow and chilling us to the bone, and as quickly as possible we
descended into the Bhyundar Valley, which bifurcates with the Alaknanda
Valley.

Within a few minutes we were out of the wind and in rain which became
gradually warmer as we lost height. Dense mist shrouded the mountainside
and we had paused, uncertain as to the route, when I heard R. L.
Holdsworth, who was a botanist as well as a climbing member of the
expedition, exclaim :“Look! “I followed the direction of his outstretched
hand. At first I could see nothing but rocks, then suddenly my wandering
gaze was arrested by a little splash of blue, and beyond it were other
splashes of blue, a blue so intense it seemed to light the hillside. As
Holdsworth wrote: “All of a sudden I realised that I was simply surrounded
by primulas. At once the day seemed to brighten perceptibly. Forgotten were
all pains and cold and lost porters. And what a primula it
was! Its leek- like habit proclaimed it a member of the nivalis section. All
over the little shelves and terraces it grew, often with its roots in running
water. At the most it stood six inches high, but its flowers were enormous
for its stature, and ample in number — sometimes as many as thirty to the
beautifully proportioned umbel, and in colour of the most heavenly French
blue, sweetly scented.”

In all my mountain wanderings I had not seen a more beautiful flower
than this primula; the fine rain-drops clung to its soft petals like galaxies of
seed-pearls and frosted its leaves with silver.

Lower, where we camped near a moraine, were androsaces, saxifrages,
sedums, yellow and red potentillas, geums, geraniums, asters, gentians, to
mention but a few plants, and it was impossible to rake a step without
crushing a flower.

Next day we descended to lush meadows. Here our camp was embowered
amidst flowers: snow-white drifts of anemones, golden, lily-like nomockaris,
mari-golds, globe flowers, delphiniums, violets, eritrwhiums, blue corydafa,
wild roses, flowering shrubs and rhododen-drons, many of them flowers
with homely sounding English names. The Bhyundar Valley was the most
beautiful valley that any of us had seen. We camped in it for two days and
we remembered it afterwards as the Valley of Flowers.

Often, in dark winter days, I wandered in spirit to these flowerful pastures
with their clear-running streams set against a frieze of silver birches and
shining snow peaks. Then once again I saw the slow passage of the breeze
through the flowers, and heard the eternal note of the glacier torrent coming
to the camp fire through the star-filled night.

After many years in London I went to live in the country, where I set to
work to make a garden out of a field of thistles, ragwort and dandelions. I
had looked on gardening as an old man’s hobby, and a dull and
unremunerative labour, but I came upon something that Karel Capek had
written:

“You must have a garden before you know what you are treading on.
Then, dear friend, you will see that not even clouds are so diverse, so
beautiful and terrible as the soil under your feet ... I tell you that to tame a
couple of rods of soil is a great victory. Now it lies there, workable, crumbly
and humid. ... You are almost jealous of the vegetation which will take hold
of this noble and humane work which is called die soil.”

So I became a gardener. But I was profoundly ignorant. Two and a half
years ago I did not know the difference between a biennial and a perennial. I
am still ignorant, for there is no limit to ignorance or knowledge in
gardening. But I discovered one thing; that there is a freemasonry among
gardeners which places gardening on a pinnacle above jealousy and
suspicion. Perhaps this is because it is essentially a creative task and brings
out a fine quality of patience. You may hasten the growth of a constitution
but you cannot hasten the growth of an Alpine plant.

In 1937 the opportunity came to return to the Bhyundar Valley. I travelled
alone for several reasons, but it was arranged that Captain P. R. Oliver of the
South Waziristan Scouts should join me towards the end of July and that he
and I should spend two months mountaineering in the Garhwal Himalayas,
after which I should return to the valley to collect seeds, bulbs, tubers and
plants. Thus, I should have six weeks on my own before and during the
monsoon season, and to help me I engaged, through the kind offices of Mr.

W. J. Kydd of Darjeeling, four Tibetan porters of whom the Sirdar, Wangdi
Nurbu (or Ondi,) was an old friend of mine.

One reason for this small party was that, after four large and elaborately
organised Himalayan expeditions, I welcomed the opportunity of taking a
Himalayan holiday, a very different affair from an attempt to climb one of
the major peaks of the world and involving an entirely different scale of
values both human and material. The ascent of Mount Everest has become a
duty, perhaps a national duty, comparable with attempts to reach the Poles,
and is far removed from pleasurable mountaineering. Mountaineering in the
Garhwal and Kumaon Himalayas more nearly resembles moun-taineering in
Switzerland, for here are mountains and valleys like Swiss mountains and
valleys but built on a greater scale. But, unlike parts of Switzerland, the
country is unspoilt by commercialism. There are no railways, power lines,
roads and hotels to offend the eye and detract from the primitive beauty and
grandeur of the vistas, and there are peaks innumerable, unnamed and
unclimbed, of all shades of difficulty, and valleys that have never seen a
European, where a simple kindly peasant folk graze their flocks in the
summer months.

Then the flowers. From the hot valleys in the south, moist and humid
during the monsoon season, to the golden hills of Tibet with their dry, cold
winds, there is much to tempt the imagination of the gardener and the
botanist, yet, strangely enough, little collecting has been done since the years
between 1846 and 1849 when Sir Richard Strachey and J. E. Winterbottom
made their famous collection of specimens. It was left lo R. L. Holdsworth
in 1931 to point out the potentialities of this floral storehouse and in “Kamet
Conquered” he wrote : “There are many enthusiastic gardeners who, I feel
sure, would welcome these Himalayan high-alpines, and I write this in the

hope that some enter-prising philanthropist will go and get us seed or plants,
not merely of the easier, bigger species from compara-tively low down, but
of many a shy primula and gentian which haunts the more austere heights of
that wonderful world.”

It was my privilege to undertake this work and the reader, while
remembering and I hope generously, my ignorance, must judge for himself
whether the Bhyundar Valley deserves its title the Valley of Flowers. Others
will visit it, analyse it and probe it but, whatever their opinions, to me it will
remain the Valley of Flowers, a valley of peace and perfect beauty where the
human spirit may find repose.

On June 1st I arrived at Ranikhet from Naini Tal where I had stayed with
Sir Harry Haig, the Governor of the United Provinces, and Lady Haig. Sir
Harry was then President of the Himalayan Club and he very kindly
promised to do everything in his power to help me, whilst Lady Haig, who is
an enthusiastic gardener, has done much to beautify the already beautiful
surroundings of Government House at Naini Tal.

Ranikhet is a hill station situated at about 5,000 feet on a foothill ridge
which commands a view of the Central Himalayas, from the peaks of
western Nepal to the snows of Badrinath and- Tehri Garhwal, com-parable
in beauty, grandeur and extent to the celebrated view of Kangchenjunga
from Darjeeling. In a single sweep the eye ranges from east to west past
Nanda Kot, 22,530 feet, climbed in 1936 by a Japanese ex-pedition ; Nanda
Devi, 25,645 feet, the highest peak in British administered territory and thus
strictly speaking in the British Empire, which was climbed in 1936 by the
Anglo-American Expedition ; Trisul, 23,360 feet, climbed by Dr. T. G.
Longstaff in 1907, and which remained the highest summit to have been
reached until 1930 when the Jonsong Peak, 24,344 feet was climbed by the
International Kangchenjunga Expedi-tion ; then the great massif of Hathi
Parbat, 22,070 feet, and Gauri Parbat, 22,027 feet, with Nilgiri Parbat,
21,264 feet, behind and slightly to the west ; the Mana Peak, 23,860 feet,
and Kamet, 25,447 feet, nearly 100 miles distant; and so westwards to the
snows of Badrinath, 23,420 feet, with Nilkanta, 21,640 feet, one of the most
beautiful peaks in the Himalayas, standing alone, and the far snows of Tehri
Garhwal, where much interesting exploration remains to be done.

This vast wall of mountains is best seen in the clear atmosphere of
morning before the clouds, formed by the hot, moist air currents from the
valleys, have ob-scured it, and many a time I have risen early to look over
the foothills, dim and shadowy in the twilight, to the snows, hung like a

glowing curtain across the whole width of the northern sky, yet so remote it
seemed no human loot could tread their auroral steeps.

It is in these moments of awakening, when not a bird twits from the forest
and the sun steps from peak to peak slowly and in splendid strides that the
sage’s words ring true: “In a hundred ages of the Gods I could not tell thee
of the glories of Himachal.”

At Ranikhet I was joined by the four Tibetans from Darjeeling. I have
already mentioned Wangdi Nurbu. He will be familiar to some readers as the
man who fell into a crevasse on Kangchenjunga and remained in it for three
hours before he was found. He was badly knocked about and was sent down
to the base camp to be cared for by the doctor, but two days later insisted on
returning to the highest camp. Then, on Everest in 1933, he was taken ill
with double pneu-monia and was sent down to a lower valley in an
apparently dying condition, only to reappear at the base camp one month
later carrying a heavy load on his back and clamouring for work on the
mountain. Such is the spirit of the man. He is a little fellow all bone and
wiriness, who does not carry an ounce of superfluous flesh and has one of
the hardest countenances I have seen; he looks a “tough,” but in point of fact
he is sober and law abiding. He has less pro-nounced cheek-bones than
many Tibetans and his lips are thinner and firmer. His eyes are usually
slightly bloodshot in the whites, which gives them a ferocious, almost cruel
look, but Wangdi is not cruel ; he is merely hard, one of the hardest
men I know, and fit to enter a select coterie of Bhotia and Sherpa porters
which includes men such as “ Satan “ Chettan, who was killed on
Kangchenjunga, and Lewa, the Sirdar of the Kamet Expedition, not to
mention that pock-marked piece of granite, Lobsang, who distinguished
himself on Everest and Kangchenjunga, but who has, unhappily, since died.

Wangdi is illiterate, but in addition to his native language he can speak
fluent Urdu and Nepali. He is quick and jerky in action and in speech; it is as
though some fire bums within him which can never properly find a vent.
Like many of his race he is an excellent handy-man but failing his kukri
(curved Gurkha knife) prefers to use his teeth, and I have seen him place the
recalcitrant screw of a camera tripod between them and turn the tripod with
the screw as an axis until the latter was loosened, then calmly spit out such
pieces of his teeth as had been ground off in the process. East, but by no
means least, he is a fine climber. On Everest in 1936 he jumped
automatically into the lead of the porter columns on the North Col and was
never so happy as when exercising his magnificent strength and undoubted
skill.

Pasang, with his high cheek-bones and slanting eyes, is a true Tibetan
type. A tall stringy man with thin spindly legs, he somehow suggested
clumsiness, and undoubtedly he was clumsy on a mountain, particu-larly on
snow, so that when climbing with him I had always to be on my guard
against a slip. I think he must have been something of a fatalist, for
when-ever he did slip the first thing he did was to let go of his ice axe, the
one thing by which he might have stopped himself, and leave it to God or his
companions to decide whether nor not he should continue to slide into the
next world. But though this passivity was exasperating at times I liked
Pasang. He might give the impression of being a lout, but there was plenty
of common sense packed away behind his ungainly exterior, and he was to
be trusted on any other matter but climbing. His naive awkwardness, and I
can think of no better way of putting it, betokened a nature free from all
guile and he was ever ready and willing to do his best, however
uncomfortable the conditions in a rain-soaked camp or on a storm-lashed
mountainside. He was no leader and had none of the fire, vivacious-ness or
conscious toughness of Wangdi — where others went he was prepared to
follow — but there was some-thing solid and enduring about his character,
and the quick smile that unexpectedly illumined his normally solemn
countenance was a sure indication of kindliness.

Tewang was an old stager and one of the men who climbed to Camp V on
Everest in 1924. Hugh Ruttledge wrote of him in “Everest 1933 “that:
“Efficient, completely reliable, and never idle, he performed every office
from porter messman to nurse, in a manner beyond praise.” Undoubtedly he
was ageing, for he had become heavy, and it was apparent that he would be
of little use in difficult mountaineering and would have to be relegated to the
base camp as sheet-anchor of- the party. Age tells quickly on Tibetans,
perhaps because they wear themselves out when they are young, or it may be
that the height at which they live has something to do with a rapid
deterioration in their physique at a period when a European is in his prime.
He was of an even quieter disposition than Pasang and in all ways slower
than his companions; you could see this in his heavy face and lumbering
gait. I scarcely ever saw him smile, but there was a natural fatherliness about
him which would have chosen him automatically as a nurse, as it did in
1933, had there been any nursing to do.

Nurbu was the youngster of the party. He had been Major C. J. Morris’s
servant on Everest in 1936, and the training he had then received had stood
him in good stead, for he was the most efficient servant I have ever had. A
good-looking lad, with a round, boyish and remarkably smooth- skinned

face, he was invariably cheerful and quick to seize upon and remember
any- thing to do with his job. He had had little or no mountaineering
experience and came to me as a raw novice at the craft, but he was a natural
climber, neat and careful, particularly on rocks, on which he was cat-like in
his agility and, unlike many of his type, quick to learn the finer point* of
mountaineering, such as handling the rope and cutting steps in snow and ice.
Himalayan mountaineering will hear more of him in the future and I venture
the prophecy that he puts up a good showing on Everest in 1938.

Such were my companions — I cannot think of them as porters — and I
could scarcely have wished for better. They contributed generously and in
full measure to the pleasure and success of the happiest holiday of my life.

Three days at Ranikhet sufficed to complete my preparations, but I might
not have got away so expeditiously had it not been for the help given me by
Mrs. Evelyn Browne, whom many Himalayan mountaineers will remember
with gratitude, whilst my short stay was rendered additionally pleasant by
the kindness of Major Browne, the Secretary of the Club.

On June 4th my arrangements were completed and eleven Dotial porters,
of a race indigenous to southern Nepal, had arrived to carry my heavy
luggage to the base camp. So at last the dream of several years was on the
verge of practical fulfilment.

CHAPTER II
THE LOW FOOTHILLS

everything was ready on the morning of June 5th, and the lorry which
was to convey me the first part of my journey was packed to capacity with
fifteen porters and some 1,000 lbs. of luggage. This journey, of some fifty-
five miles from Ranikhet to the village of Garur, was along narrow roads,
the hairpin bends in which were innumerable and acute, and the driver drove
on the principle that no obstacle was to he encountered on the comers, and if
it was, Providence must decide the issue. Fortunately Providence was well
disposed and, apart from some hectic encounters with stray cows and
bullock carts, the drive was uneventful.

The foothills of the Himalayas provide the perfect introduction to the
“Snows” and their gentle forest-clad undulations lead the eye forwards to the
back-ground of gigantic peaks which distance serves to increase, not
diminish in beauty.

After following for some miles the clear-running Kosi River and passing
numerous villages and Government resin-collecting stations, the road
climbed over a high ridge, where I saw several tree rhododendrons and the
distant snows of Trisul and Nanda Devi, then wound sinuously down to the
level floor of the wide Sarju Valley.

Garur, the terminus of the motor road, is a sordid little place, like any
native place to which “civilisation” has penetrated disguised in the form of
motor-cars. Flies swarmed over the offal in the street, beggars whined for
alms, and from one of the single-storey hovels a cheap gramophone wheezed
drearily. There is no doubt that the farthest-flung tentacles of civilisation
debase, not improve human conditions. However, like Mr. Gandhi, I might
damn motor-cars, but I had not hesitated to employ one. I turned my back
gladly on the place with its smells, the immemorial and “ roman-tic “ smells
of the East, which are compounded quite simply of the effluvium from an
inadequate drainage system and unwashed human bodies, mingling in the
present instance with a reek of oil and petrol, and set off on the first stage of
my march. For the next few months I should neither see, hear, nor smell a
motor-car or aeroplane; it was a stimulating thought.

Beyond Garur, the path crosses the Sarju River by a well-built suspension
bridge, then, after sundry ups and downs, begins a long climb to the
Gwaldam dak bungalow.

It was a hot march — the temperature cannot have been much less than 100
degrees in the shade — and the Dotials poured with sweat. How they
managed to carry their 8o-lb. loads I do not know. I felt a slave-driver, but it
is possible I estimated their efforts by my own incapacities, for I had left
Ranikhet with a tem-perature of 101 degrees and a feverish-chill. This may
have been unwise, but I am convinced that the best way of ridding myself of
a chill is to walk it off and sweat it out; I certainly must have accomplished
the latter as I was fat and flabby after many months of sedentary living.

The foothills of the Central Himalayas are poor in flowers owing to
forests of chir (Pinus longifolia), which cover the ground in a carpet of
needles, thus prevent-ing the growth of plants or the germination of seed.
Yet these forests have a charm of their own, for the chir is a fine tree and,
though it has few branches and casts little shade, grows straight and true to a
considerable height. Furthermore, trees are well spaced and owing to the
absence of clogging undergrowth or lank grass, the country resembles a
well-kept parkland. Lastly, the chir is highly resinous and the air is fragrant
in its neighbourhood.

In normal circumstances it is an enjoyable walk to Gwaldam, but that day
it was a matter of setting my teeth and plugging on with a bursting head,
aching limbs and a thirst which I satisfied recklessly at every spring.

So, at last, after ten miles’ walk and an ascent of some 4,000 feet I
emerged from the forest on to the ridge where the bungalow stands
overlooking the haze-filled depths of the Pindar Valley to the remote gleam
of the Himalayan snows.

Two Englishmen were encamped near the bungalow, Mr. G. W. H.
Davidson, the Headmaster of Colvin Taluqdars College, Lucknow, who had
with him one of his Indian pupils, and Major Matthews of the Royal
Engineers, and their kindness and hospitality had much to do with my rapid
recovery from my chill, for I went to bed with an excellent dinner and a
considerable quantity of whisky inside me and woke miraculously better
next morning.

From Gwaldam a forest path descends steeply into the Pindar Valley. We
were away early, soon after the sun had fired the snows, and an hour later
had descended 3,000 feet to the Pindar River.

About half-way to the village of Tharali I met with another Englishman,
Corporal Hamilton, a member of a party of soldiers of the East Surrey
Regiment who were at this time attempting the ascent of Kamet.
Unfortunately, he had damaged his arm, which had become poisoned. As I
had with me a comprehensive medical kit I was able to disinfect and bind up
the wound, which had already been treated by an Indian doctor.

The expedition in which he took part is one of the most remarkable in the
annals of Himalayan moun-taineering. The soldiers, who were led by
Corporal Ralph Ridley, after an expedition the previous summer to the Arwa
Valley glacier system, boldly decided to attempt Kamet in 1937. Their
organisation was admir-ably and they failed primarily through lack of
sufficient porterage after overcoming the greatest difficulties of the route
and reaching a height of 23,700 feet. At the same time to attempt a major
peak, even though it has been climbed before, is unwise without adequate
moun-taineering experience; there are peaks of all heights and shades of
difficulty in the Himalayas where the novice may learn the craft. Nature is
intolerant of ignorance, and he who attempts the greater peaks of the
Himalayas without having acquired that delicacy and acuteness of
perception, that instinctive feeling for his task, will sooner or later blunder to
disaster. This is not meant to detract from the merit of an expedition which
was conspicuous for the initiative and self-reliance displayed, but merely to

point out the advisability of preliminary preparation in mountaineering. It is
to be hoped that future mountaineering expeditions will receive the
encouragement of the High Command.

Tharali huddles at the foot of a knoll thrusting forwards into the Pindar
River, which narrows considerable at this point. The village was devastated
by a flood in the summer of 1936. Twenty inches of rain fell in one day and
the Pindar River, unable to discharge its surplus waters through the narrow
portion of the valley, rose and flooded the village, destroying a number of
houses and drowning forty of the inhabitants.

The usual camping ground is a strip of sun-scorched turf by the river, but
I preferred the partial shade of some pines on the knoll near the village
school, which sports large notices over every approach to the effect that all
are welcome; ineffective propaganda to judge from the absence of pupils,
but perhaps it was a holiday. The afternoon was the hottest I ever remember.
My tent, which was only six and a half feet long by four feet wide, was
intolerable, so I lay outside it on a mattress in the scanty shade of the pines,
plagued by innumerable flies.

Evening brought little relief, and the sun set in a fumace-like glare. The
night was breathless but I managed to sleep, only to be awakened shortly
before midnight by flickering lightning and reverberating concussions of
thunder. The storm was confined to the hills and passed after an hour,
leaving a dull red glow in the sky, presumably the reflection of a forest fired
by lightning.

I breakfasted early and was away at five o’clock, anxious to break the
back of the long march to Subtal, which entails some twelve miles of
walking and 5,000 feet of ascent.

The storm had done nothing to clear the air and the forests were charged
with damp enervating heat, so that it was a relief to emerge from them after
two hours’ uphill walking on to more open slopes, where the village of
Dungri perches below a basin-like rim of hills. The air here was cooler and
men and women were working energetically in the terraced fields or
scratching shallow furrows with primitive wooden ploughs drawn by oxen
or buffaloes. The men greeted me in a friendly way, and the children gazed
at me curiously, impudently or shyly in the manner of children the world
over, but the nose-beringed women I met with on the path hastened by with
averted faces. At one hamlet a man ran out of a house, saluted with military
precision and offered to carry my rucksack.

Forests of chir, open country artificially deforested, then rhododendrons,
deciduous trees, spruces and firs is the natural upward order of growth in the
lower foothills, where crops flourish best in the temperate zone from 4,000
to 8,000 feet. I entered the cool forest above Dungri and seating myself on a
mossy bank ate my lunch of biscuits and potatoes. I was far ahead of the
porters; the forest was profoundly silent, and great clouds were slowly
building up in a sky of steely oxidised blue. Not even in the Sikkim forests
have I seen finer tree rhododendrons, and there was one moss-clad giant
which cannot have been less than five feet in diameter. For how many
centuries had these trees endured? Long before the wooden ships of “The
Company” sailed to India they must have established themselves on the
knees of the Himalayas.

Beyond my luncheon place I had a glimpse of a brown bear as it leapt
from the path — a little fellow who was gone in a flash. After this the path
mounted at a restful angle and passing over a brow descended to, a stream
issuing from a rocky rift. There was a deep pool and I stripped and bathed,
gasping at first in the ice-cold water, then dried myself on a flat rock in the
sun. While I was engaged in this a small boy passed and catching sight of
me bolted precipitately up the path; then halted to eye me with fearful
curiosity. Probably he had never seen a European before, and at all events
anyone who bathed, and in ice-cold water, was indubitably mad.

The camping ground at Subtal, the name given to an extensive pasture, is
a sparsely wooded ridge which rises on either hand to hills densely forested
in spruce and the Himalayan oak, which is a narrow spreading tree as
compared with the English oak. To the north the ridge falls away into a
branch valley of the Nandakini Valley, through which the western glaciers
of Trisul pour their waters into the Alaknanda River.

It was not yet midday, but the sky was thick with gathering storm clouds
and the earth lay still and silent beneath a weight of lurid haze. The porters
were long in arriving, but it was a marvel that they should arrive at all
considering the weight of their loads, the distance and the climb. If my
mathematics are not too rusty, the energy required to lift a human body plus
an extra 80 lbs. of weight through nearly a mile of height comes to well over
1,000,000 foot pounds, of which the load amounts to about 400,000 foot
pounds. In terms of the load alone it is equivalent to shovelling about 75 tons
of coal into a furnace.

Meanwhile, a party of traders with a dozen ponies had halted close by and
lit a fire after carefully stacking their merchandise under a tarpaulin.
Presently one of them, seeing that I was alone, asked me if I would care for

some food. It was a generous thought, but I had no need to deplete their
probably slender supplies. This was only one instance of the kindliness of
the people of this country and it seemed to me that the human atmosphere of
Garhwal and Kumaon was very different to what it had been in 1931. Is Mr.
Gandhi’s creed of non-violence bearing the fruits of sympathy, tolerance and
understanding or is a more positive and less vacillating British rule
responsible? Whatever it is, one thing is certain only through co-operation,
friendship and mutual respect between the British and Indian races is any
real and lasting benefit for either to be achieved in India in that distant future
when education and evolution will have emancipated the Indian
peoples from their strangling social and religious prejudices.

The early afternoon darkened gradually and in the close sultry atmosphere
flies attacked me venomously. The haze deepened until it was difficult to
perceive where the hills ended and the clouds began. A rust-coloured light
invested the forest, then faded as the last oases of blue sky were swallowed
up by chaotic and enormous thunderclouds, and the far north where the
Himalayas lay began to shudder with long muffled reverberations of
thunder.

At two o’clock the porters straggled into camp, soaked with sweat and
very tired. As the Darjeeling men pitched the tents, one for me and one for
themselves, heavy drops of rain were splashing into the forest and the
thunder was rumbling continuously as though a column of tanks and guns
was crossing a hollow-sounding bridge.

Soon lightning was flickering and stabbing through a blue wall of
advancing rain, smeared dull white with hail, and the thunder was tearing
overhead like a giant rending endless strips of calico. Then above the
thunder I heard a dull roar, rising in strength and pitch every instant, and
almost before I had time to realise its meaning the thin-topped spruces a
hundred yards distant bent like whip-lashes and a terrific squall of wind and
hail, rifted by mauve swords of lightning and fearful explosions of thunder,
burst in wild fury on the camp.

This first blast of the storm did not last long, and half an hour later the
rain stopped and the wind died into a damp calm, smelling of wet earth and
vegetation. Though the storm had retreated from the immediate vicinity of
Subtal the thunder continued, coming from every direction and without
pause in a single tremendous sound that grew and ebbed and grew again in
concussions that seemed to shake the hills to their foundations.

The storm was working up another climax when Nurbu brought me my
supper, which Tewang had artfully cooked in the shelter of a hollow tree.
After-wards 1 lay in my sleeping-bag and watched through the entrance of
the tent the finest display of lightning I have ever ‘seen. The whole sky was
continuously blazing with mauve fire and it was possible to read
uninterruptedly from a book. Slowly the lightning grew in brilliance, if that
were possible, and the thunder in volume. This was no ordinary storm, even
in a dis-trict where storms are frequent, and I wished I had moved the tents
after the first storm, though with the ridges on either side of the camp there
did not seem any likelihood of danger. There was no time to do anything
now and at nine o’clock the storm was upon us in a hurricane of wind, hail
and rain, punctuated every second by blinding lightning and terrible
explosions of thunder.

Lightning when it strikes close to the observer does not make the noise we
conventionally term “thunder,” or even the rending, tearing noise already
mentioned, but a single violent explosion, a BANG like a powerful bomb. I
have no hesitation in admitting that I was thoroughly scared, and as I lay in
my sleeping-bag I could have sworn that streams of fire flickered along the
ridge of the tent and down the lateral guy-rope.

The worst was over within half an hour and I went outside to see how the
Dotials had fared, for I half feared that one or other of the trees beneath
which they were sheltering had been struck. To my great relief they were all
safe, though even the irrepressible Wangdi, who together with Pasang,
Nurbu and Tewang had been in the other tent, seemed a trifle shaken by the
experience.

This was the last of the storm so far as it concerned us, but long
afterwards the sky flamed with lightning and thunder serenaded the ranges. I
am not exagger-ating when I state that I do not remember a second’s pause
in the sound of the thunder during a total period of eight hours.

The sky next morning was cloudless, but dense haze concealed the view I
Had hoped to obtain of the snows. We were away as the sun touched the
camp and des-cended through cool and fragrant forests, alive with the song
of birds, to cultivated slopes and small villages; then into a wooded valley,
with a stream of clear-running water. Here at about 7,000 feet on an open
slope I saw the first of a little iris (I. kumaonensis ) , which I knew I would
meet with later on the Kuari Pass and in the Bhyundar Valley. I also came
upon hundreds of the largest cobwebs I have ever seen. For a mile, the trees
and shrubs had suspended between them vast nets, wet and shining after the
rain, with the spider waiting for his breakfast in the centre of each. So strong

were the webs that stout twigs to which they were affixed were bent at right
angles, whilst the largest was stretched between two trees fully twelve feet
apart and had as its spinner a spider about six inches in width from tip to tip
of its hairy legs.

At the village of Ghat which is situated in the deep Nandakini Valley, a
single-room dak bungalow des-titute of furniture did not attract me and I
preferred to camp by the river. The tent had scarcely been pitched when
thunder began to growl again and a mass of inky clouds advanced quickly
down the valley. A few minutes later I was astonished to see a writhing
column of spray appear round a bend of the river and descend on the camp.
Next moment up went my tent, wrenching the metal tent-pegs away as
though they were matches, and swept along the ground towards the river.
Yelling to the men I threw myself on it and a few moments later was joined
by Wangdi, Nurbu and Pasang, all shouting with laughter, evidently
convinced that a whirlwind was a huge joke.

Later the weather improved and I supped in the calm of a perfect evening.
I had no official cook. Experience has taught me that official cooks are to be
avoided in the Himalayas as they are almost invariably dirty and are bom
“twisters” and “scroungers” ; worst of all they are impervious to insult,
sarcasm, or righteous anger, and like their European prototypes, resent the
best intentioned suggestions and advice. Furthermore, they are set in their
habits, and their habits are vile, and, lastly,, they are invariably bad cooks, or
so my experience goes, and are largely responsible for the stomach troubles
that beset Himalayan expeditions.

Therefore, I had left it to the men to decide between themselves as to
which of them should cook for me, and Tewang had elected himself or been
elected to the post. To write that he was a good cook, which implies the
exercise of imagination and a fertility of invention, would be to overstate his
abilities. He was simply a plain cook, so plain that his cooking would have
palled at an early date on an appetite less voracious than mine. His most
artistic culinary flight was rissoles, and he would produce these with one
of his rare smiles creasing his broad face and an exaggerated pride worthy of
a conjurer who has out-Maskelyned his own professors. But he cooked what
he did cook well and I seldom had cause to reproach him on this score. So
having seen that he was clean, that doubtful water was boiled, and that dish-
cloths were used in preference to the tail of a shirt, I left him to his own
devices.

The Dotials were averse to proceeding to Joshimath via the Kuari Pass.
As they justly pointed out the route from Ghat via Nanda Prayag and the

Alaknanda Valley is considerably easier. I had however, no in-tention of
proceeding by that route, which is very hot and at times fever-ridden, in
preference to the cool, healthful and beautiful high-level route via the Kauri
Pass, and when I pointed out the disadvantage of the former route, their
objections soon resolved themselves into good-humoured grumblings.

From Ghat the path crosses the Nandakini River by a strongly built
suspension bridge, then zigzags up a steep and arid hillside. Some 2,500 feet
up this, perched on a grassy spur, is a small village, the inhabitants of which
greeted me cheerfully. Their lives are spent, like the lives of most people of
this country, in agricultural pursuits. A spring and summer of intense
activity, devoted to the task of levelling their little fields on the steep
hillsides, removing innumerable stones and building them into walls so that
the monsoon rains do not wash the precious soil into the valley, turning the
thin soil with wooden ox-drawn ploughs, sowing, reaping and threshing, is
followed by a winter of comparative inactivity. Scarcely less strenuous is the
work of the shepherds deputed to drive the flocks to the upper pastures,
which are so few and scanty that owners must take it in turns to graze them.
Theirs is the life of the mountain peasant the world over; a struggle against
adverse forces, yet forces that once tamed will yield, if not bountifully, at
least enough to maintain a fit and hardy race. A dull, monotonous life
perhaps, a minute cycle of work and rest, but running through it all the
never-ending thread of human propagation and continuity. These dour
peasants may be outwardly in-sensible to their tremendous environment, but
the vast hills that everlastingly mock their puny efforts, the deep valleys with
their rush of glacial waters bearing onwards to the far-distant plains, the
remote glimmer of the high snows have become a part of them, and deep in
their inmost selves must rest a love, respect and reverence for their
unrelenting taskmasters, the Himalayas.

From the village, the path mounted an open hillside to a ridge clothed
with oaks and tree rhododendrons. I lunched in a glade which commanded a
view between the trees of Trisul, a vast barrier of shining snow at the head
of the deeply-cut Nandakini Valley, whose ribbon-like stream thousands of
feet beneath me twisted and turned between bare shoulders of the hills. The
air w-as fresh, and only the whirring and humming of insects fell on a
profound stillness. Ail around me grew a pale mauve daisy, whilst on the
slope below was a catmint with rosette-like silvery foliage and blue flowers,
some of which were already in seed.

Presently the porters appeared. They were singing, and their simple little
song, echoing through the silent glades of the forest, somehow partook of

the beauty and majesty of the surroundings; complicated music would be out
of place where everything is simple and sublime.

Beyond the glade, the path traversed a forest-clad hillside, then emerged
on to open slopes terraced with fields where the little village of Ramni
perches. Our camping place was on turf close-cropped by the village
animals, but not eaten so short as to destroy the brilliant blue flowers of a
tiny gentian (G. capitata). In 1931 we had been pestered by flies at Ramni,
but on this occasion a mosquito net over the entrance of my tent enabled me
to escape their hateful attentions.

It was a hot afternoon, but the evening was delight-fully cool ; the flies
disappeared and, with no midges or mosquitoes to take their place, I ate my
supper in peace beneath the accumulating stars.

CHAPTER III
THE HIGH FOOTHILLS

THE following morning was cloudy, but the clouds soon dissolved in the
sun. As I walked up the forest path to the next ridge I felt myself to be
nearing the threshold of the high hills. The anemones increased in number as
I climbed, whilst hosts of buttercups spread a golden carpet over the dew-
drenched turf.

Many sheep and goats laden with grain were follow-ing the same path on
their way to the upper valleys of Garhwal, where the grain is transferred to
yaks and jhobus (half-breed yaks), then taken over the high passes into
Tibet. Ponies are sometimes employed for load-carrying, but the bulk of the
grain h carried in little bags, reinforced with leather, on the backs of sheep
and goats, the sheep carrying some 20 to 25 lbs. and the goats as much as 30
lbs. The drivers are ragged, picturesque, friendly fellows, some with long
curly hair. They walk with a shambling, flat-footed gait something like that
of the Alpine guide, and two or three of them will share a long water-pipe
with a wide, shallow bowl, which they fill with villainous tobacco, mixed
with charcoal, or when no tobacco is available, charcoal alone. Smoking one
of these pipes is something of a ritual. A man takes two or three rapid puffs,
then hands on the pipe to his neighbour, so that the pipe soon goes the round
of a dozen men. In this way asphyxiation or carbon monoxide poisoning is
avoided.

Thunder was rumbling in the west as I breasted the ridge above Ramni,
but the north and east were clear and Nanda Ghunti stood revealed in all its
beauty.

This peak is 20,700 feet high, and is so beautifully proportioned that it
appears almost as high as its greater neighbour, Trisul.

On the far side of the ridge the path descended through forests, crossing
occasional “glades. I remem-bered that Holdsworth found Paeonia Emodii
here-abouts, and I kept my eyes open. But I did not see one until I was
within half a mile of the camping ground; then, suddenly, in a shady place,
and close to the path, I saw a clump of them. The day was dark now, for a
storm was brewing, but even in the gloom of the forest, their cream-coloured
blooms shone out as though retaining the recent sunlight in their petals. The
clump was the only one in bloom, as the rest were already seeding. This
place must be a mar-vellous sight in April and the first weeks of May, for
this paeony blooms early, pushing its way, like the Alpine crocus, through
the edge of the retreating snows.

I remembered Semkharak as one of the most delightful camping grounds
we had seen during the march to Kamet, but now hills and forest were
burdened with impending storm, and the little alp seemed dreary and forlorn.
Thunder was growling about the hills when I arrived, but I did not have to
wait long for the men, who were just in time to pitch the tents before rain fell
in torrents.

For the next two hours lightning darted viciously at the forest-clad ridges
and the thunder reverberated from lip to lip of the cup-shaped hills, then,
towards evening, with that suddenness peculiar to mountainous countries,
the rain and the thunder ceased, and the clouds vanished as though absorbed
by some invisible vacuum-cleaner.

The men collected wood from the forest and soon a great fire was blazing.
It was my first camp fire, and I sat by it contentedly while the golden
sunlight died on the nearer heights, then fired the distant snows of Nanda
Ghunti. Nothing had altered since we camped here in 1931 and there was
even the same half-burnt tree-stump where our fire had been lit. Possibly the
slender oaks and conifers had added a few inches to their stature, but for the
rest Semkharak was ‘the same. Things do not change quickly in the East.

Raymond Greene, a bom raconteur, had kept us amused with stories
throughout the evening. Six years had passed, but I could not regret them,
for the peace and beauty of the hills was mine that evening. The last cloud
vanished, the last glow faded from Nanda Ghunti, and the sky lit up with
stars. Not a breath of wind stirred in the treetops. Darkness fell. I ate my
supper, then smoked my pipe and dreamed, until the fire had died down to a
heap of glowing embers and the dew lay hoary on the grass.

Next morning I descended into the Birehi Valley, passing through
hundreds of acres of paeonies in seed. The seed was unripe, but I gathered
some, hoping to ripen it later; I know now that this is difficult if not
impossible in the case of the paeony, for the seed shrivels, and becomes
valueless. It must be gathered when it is perfectly ripe and ready to fall out
of the pod.

The path crossed a small log bridge over the river near a vertical crag of
crumbling rock, beneath which some drovers, disregarding the law of
gravity, had camped for the night. We exchanged greetings and, as is
customary in this country, they inquired as to where I was going and from
whence I came.

From the river the path zigzagged steeply upwards, then traversed the
hillside almost levelly, through forests of tree rhododendrons, roses and a
white sweet-scented flowering shrub to the camping ground at Kaliaghat,
which is in an open grassy place, sprinkled with large boulders. Adjoining it
are cultivated fields, beyond which rises a vast wall of forest, broken high up
by gigantic crags. Many queer noises came from this forest, including the
whistle-like cries of a bird, and once I heard a coughing sound which was
probably made by a bear or panther.

The afternoon was hot and fly-ridden. It was impossible to sit outside my
tent without being pestered by innumerable flies, whilst inside it was like an
oven, so I occupied myself with collecting flowers for my press. It was a
beautiful evening, but the flies, as is usual in Garhwal, were replaced by
midges, which although small seemed capable of biting through the toughest
skin, to judge from the exasperated scratchings of the porters.

From Kaliaghat a pleasant path across meadows, then through
rhododendron and oak forest, led to a wide valley with white and blue
anemones (A, obtusiloba) within view of the Kauri Pass, which cuts a notch
in a ridge. Thenceforward the route lies across steep craggy hillsides, then
past an impressive gorge, where a stream spurts out of a narrow cleft to form
a perfect bathing-pool, and finally, after sundry ups and downs, mounts
towards the pass.

As I was well ahead of the porters I seated myself with my back to a
mossy bank, where grew the delicate sprays of a beautiful little androsare
(probably A. rotundifolia), and ate the lunch provided by Tewang. I had not
been there long before I heard a footfall, and looking up saw a wild-looking
fellow with a long-handled axe over his shoulder regarding me with the
greatest curiosity. As soon as he saw that I was disposed to be friendly he

squatted on the ground and burst into an unintelligible gabble. Probably he
had seen no one to talk to for some time and was making the best of his
opportunity. My very limited stock of Urdu elicited that he was there with
his flock for the summer and that he lived at Kaliaghat. Apart from this, our
“conversation” was limited to gestures and smiles which, however, arc very
good substitutes for speech in the wilds. I gave him some tobacco and he
departed beaming.

Presently along came the Dotials. As usual, in spite of their heavy loads,
they were happy, and were singing their rhythmical little songs. We lunched
at Dakwani, a fertile alp 1,000 feet below the Kuari Pass. There I saw many
Iris kumaonensis in bloom. This little iris, a miniature edition of the English
garden iris, grows on hot, well-drained sunny slopes. All it asks for is a cool
root mn. Then, when the winter snow melts, it pushes out its thin leaves and
a little later its spire of purple blooms which partake in colour of cold
shadowed snow and rich blue sky. It grows well in England and I have one
in my own garden which brings to me every spring a memory of the
Himalayas.

Dakwani is the usual camping ground, but I determined to push on and
camp on the pass, for this is a renowned view-point and commands a
prospect extending from the Nanda Devi group to the peaks of Badrinath.
Accordingly, I left the main transport at Dakwani and with three Darjeeling
men and four Dotials climbed a zigzag stony track to the pass. The crest is
not the best view-point, and I camped on a rocky ridge some distance to the
east, where there are no near hills to interfere with the panorama.
Unfortunately clouds and haze concealed most of the peaks, but I hoped that
the following morning would afford a clear view particularly of the Zaskar
Range, into which the Byhundar Valley cuts and the peaks I hoped to climb
during the next few weeks.

The evening was dark and dense clouds massed along the haze-filled
Alaknanda Valley. We hoped that no thunderstorm was brewing as the camp
was in an exposed position and we had no wish to repeat the experience of
Subtal. The men had carried up some wood from Dakwani, but there was
plenty of dwarf rhododendrons available, the sight of which delighted the
Tibetans as it reminded them of their native land, in many parts of which it
is the only fuel, apart from dried yak-dung.

Winter snow still covered large areas of the hillsides, but already a tiny
gentian with daintily frilled petals carpeted the ground.

At sunset the dark clouds delivered a sharp hail-storm but later the sky
cleared somewhat, revealing scattered stars. After the hot marches across the
foot-hills, it was good to feel the need of a sweater and the warmth of an
eiderdown sleeping-bag. Better still, there were no flies or midges and I
could sleep with the tent-flaps wide open.

The tonic of the high places was in the air. So far, I had lived with little
thought of the future, my thoughts circumscribed by the day’s march, but
now for the first time I experienced that feeling of expectancy which every
mountaineer has when approaching high mountains,

A restful sleep, and I awoke as usual with the first light. But there was no
view; above and below, slug-gish vapours concealed the glorious panorama
which I had seen in 1931 from the same place. The Tibetans were as
disappointed as I, for they were anxious for a glimpse of the peaks we hoped
to climb.

Presently the main party joined us and we descended towards the Dhauli
Valley, at first over open slopes, then into pine forest; and there at the upper
limit of the trees I came upon an old friend, which I had photographed in
1931, a solitary sentinel gnarled and weather-beaten by countless storms. It
was decaying, for to judge from its appearance it had been mal-treated by
lightning, but it still stretched gaunt, hard branches against the sky, an
embodiment of that endur-ing force which epitomises, in material form, the
spirit of the hills.

As we came out of the upper forest on to a wide alp, the clouds parted,
revealing the great massif of Gauri Parbat and Hathi Parbat; then almost
before I had time to take in the grandeur of this sudden revelation, a terrific
icy spire, shining and immeasurably remote, thrust itself through the clouds,
Dunagiri.

The Dotials said they were certain of the path to Joshimath. It is true there
was a path at first, but it soon petered out in the forest. We kept on for some
distance through a tangle of vegetation; then it was brought home to us that
we were lost. I was well ahead of the men and stopped. The forest was very
quiet; not a sound, not a breath disturbed the serene silence. Above, the great
trees formed a canopy with their interlacing branches, and at my feet the
deep shadows were accentuated by pools of sunlight.

Wangdi joined me and we yelled lustily until all the men were assembled
; then we struck straight down the hillside, forcing our way through
undergrowth, and at length, to our relief, came to a path leading in the
direction of Joshimath.

I halted for lunch by a leisurely little stream, fringed with marigolds that
wandered into a sun-drenched glade. After this the path wound sinuously
across the hillside, descending gradually as it did so into a forest of chir, hot
and resinous in the nearly vertical noon-day sun. Thenceforward it was a
somewhat weary march, but enlivened at one place by a number of lemurs
playing about on a boulder. They allowed me to approach within a few yards
of them, but looked so hostile that I felt glad of my ice-axe. Beyond were
numerous hamlets whose inhabitants were working industriously on their
small terraced fields of grain and vegetables. I asked one of them how far it
was to Joshimath, and he replied two miles, but it was more like four or five
; these people have small regard for distance, and measure it in time rather
than mileage.

The path divided, and not sure as to which branch to take, I waited until a
small woman driving some oxen appeared. She seemed terrified when I
questioned her and hastened by with averted eyes. How many decades will
there be before the Indian woman is emancipated from the mental, moral and
physical slavery she has endured for countless generations?

Joshimath is perched on. a hillside some 1,500 feet above the junction of
the Alaknanda and Dhauli Rivers. It is a halting-place of pilgrims who
journey to Badrinath during the summer months to pay their respects to
Mother Ganges, and worship at the shrines of deities associated with the
sacred snows of Himachal (Himalaya). Unhappily, they bring with them
many diseases from the plains, and cholera, dysentery; typhoid and malaria
exact their toll from the devout, whose notions as to sanitation, cleanliness
and hygiene are at constant variance with the well-intentioned preventive
and remedial efforts of the Indian Government. All along the road infection
is spread by hordes of flies and he is a wise traveller who boils every cup of
his drinking water. The village is an ugly little place with slate- or
corrugated iron-covered, two-storeyed houses, straggling unbeautifully over
the hillside. Primitive little shops displaying sweetmeats, vegetables and
other commodities line the main street, which is roughly paved in places and
in others has been deeply channelled by the monsoon rains. The pilgrims
spend the night in single-storeyed rest-houses, not unlike the hovels
provided for the Kentish hop-pickers of former days, some of which are
situated in narrow passages running off the main street, and are filthy, and
evil-smelling. Such pestilential conditions have little effect on the pilgrims
and scores were to be seen, many being naked save for a loin-cloth, seated in
meditation, their thoughts fixed on the shrine at Badrinath, their sacred
destination.

There are numerous temples dedicated to various gods, principal among
them being Vishnu, who is represented by an idol carved from black stone.
Joshi-math was at one time the capital of the Katyuris, the rulers of western
Kumaon and Garhwal, and the successors of the Buddhists, who were driven
out of Nepal, Kumaon and Garhwal by Sankara, the indefatigable destroyer
of Buddhism in India, who is thought to have lived in the seventh or eighth
centuries. It was he who advocated pilgrimage to the shrines of Shiva
and Vishnu at Kedamath and Badrinath. His disciples were established in
these ancient shrines and the consequent influx of pilgrims prevented a
reversion to Buddhism. Owing to religious quarrels between the followers of
the two deities, Joshimath was abandoned by the Katyuris, whose kingdom
was broken up, forcing them to establish themselves as independent rajahs.
Since it was first instituted, the pilgrimage to Badrinath and Kedamath has
increased in importance and nowa-days some 50,000 or 60,000 pilgrims
from all parts of India, including the remote south; make their way every
year up the Alaknanda Valley. Even the pil-grimage to Benares is not so
beneficial to the soul as that to the snows of the Himalayas, which bestow so
bountifully their sanctity and bliss to the heart of man. It is written in the
Skanda Purana :

“He who thinks of Himachal though he should not behold him is greater
than he who performs all wor-ship in Kashi (Benares). In a hundred ages of
the gods, I could not tell thee of the glories of Himachal. As the dew is dried
up by the morning sun, so are the sins of mankind by the sight of Himachal.”

Doubtless some of the old Buddhist demonolatry is responsible for the
veneration in which the snows are held. It may be that the European
mountaineer has something of the same superstitious instinct handed down
from the days of sun and moon worship, when the hilltops were the abiding
places of gods and devils; and not long ago Mount Pilatus was reputed to be
haunted by the uneasy ghost of Pontius Pilate. Understanding has replaced
fear, but it may be that the shadows of ancient mysteries remain, so that the
sight of high mountains rekindles in a different guise the same feelings of
awe which our remote ancestors had in their presence. That Kumaon and
Gharwal should be especially consecrated to the gods of Indian religious
mysticism, is easily understandable. Is there any region of the Himalayas, or
even of the world, to excel this region in beauty and grandeur? Where else
are there to be found such narrow and precipitous valleys and gorges, such
serene vistas of alp, forest, snow-field and peak? This “abode of snow “is
rightly the goal of the heat-enervated people of the plains. Never was a

pilgrimage of finer accomplishment. It is the perfect antidote to a static life,
and it cannot fail to inspire in the dullest a nobler conception of the universe.

Below Joshimath, sins are purified by the swift-running waters of the
Alaknanda River. From the shrine at Vishnu Prayag the pilgrims descend a
flight of steps and dip themselves in the ice-cold torrent; they ascend
rejuvenated in mind, and it must be in body, ready to tread the stony path
that leads through the gorges to Badrinath, along the “great way” to final
liberation of spirit.

There is a bungalow at Joshimath perched on the hill-side above the
village, and containing one living-room and a bathroom with the usual zinc
hip-bath, the servant’s quarters and kitchen being in a separate building.

In the living-room are some book-shelves, the last resting-place of a
number of volumes of great antiquity, among them Blackwood’s Magazines,
the Christian Science Monitor, and works of Victorian and Edwardian
novelists, all of which form a restful home for small beetles, “silver-fish”
and numerous unidentifiable in-sects. In these respects the bungalow is
similar to others in the district, but in one other respect it is re-markable, as
being the home and breeding-place of the largest spiders I have ever seen,
not excluding the tarantula of South America. The bathroom is their happy
hunting-ground, and I bathed that evening with one eye on the dilapidated
ceiling lest some huge brute, six or seven inches across, should descend
upon me.

The men had marched well, so I rested them for a day which I devoted to
letter-writing. Joshimath boasts a post-office, a curious ramshackle little
building, with a doorway so low I had to stoop to enter. In this lair,
surrounded by the usual appurtenances of his craft, a Morse key, ledgers,
pigeon-holes and official notices innumerable, I found the Postmaster and
his assistant.

In 1936, during the Mount Everest Expedition, the letters sent back by
members mysteriously disappeared, to reappear some six or eight months
later in England bearing the following typewritten notice:

“Suffered detention in Gangtok post office owing to the postmaster’s
failure to affix stamps and to forward them in time. The Postmaster has been
sent to jail for his offence.”

But any doubts I may have entertained as to the efficiency of the Indian
Posts were dispelled by the Postmaster of Joshimath, who proved not only
courteous, but helpful and efficient.

Later, the local Bunnia (storekeeper), a comfortable-looking person who
beamed amiably through thick spectacles, put in an appearance and I ordered
sattoo (parched barley, a staple food in the Central and Eastern Himalayas),
rice, gur (native sugar, which is purchased in lumps resembling solid glue),
tea, curry ingredients, atta (flour), spices, potatoes and onions. I bought
enough to keep the four Darjeeling men for a fortnight, allowing two pounds
of food per man per day, and the cost worked out at roughly 6 annas per man
per day. Eggs I failed to secure, although a man was sent to scour the
country for them.

Late in the afternoon there was a thunderstorm, but towards sundown the
clouds melted away, and with my work done and arrangements completed
for the morrow’s march, I reclined in an easy chair on the verandah, while a
gentle breeze stirred an apricot tree above me, then fell gradually to a
complete calm. A rosy glow invested the great rock faces opposite and dusk
gathered in the deep Alaknanda Valley. The last mist vanished in a sky of
profound green, and the first star shone out. Little did I know, but this was
the evening before the great tragedy on Nanga Parbat, 400 miles to the
north-west, where seven German mountaineers and nine Sherpa porters were
settling down to a sleep from which they were destined never to awake.

At Joshimath the evening was supremely peaceful, and there came to me,
for the first time since leaving Ranikhet, an indescribable exaltation of spirit,
which most travellers experience at one time or another in the Himalayas.
For days past I had walked over the foot-hills, rejoicing in the scenery, yet
never for one moment had I escaped civilisation ; it had been always at my
heels, and I had walked with one eye on time and another on distance, my
mind occupied with futile matters. Now I had in some way escaped from
this slavery to schedule and was free to enjoy some of the grandest country
of the world.

CHAPTER IV

THE BHYUNDAR VALLEY

WE were away at 6 next morning. One of the porters was leading a goat
which I had purchased at the last moment for the exorbitant sum of 9 rupees,
a fine beast with a long clean shaggy coat which reminded me vaguely of
those curious little doormat-like dogs that trail behind amply-proportioned
females in Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. I dubbed him Montmorency,
but why I cannot for the life of me recollect. I liked Montmorency, and had
not known him above an hour before I regretted his fate ; he was very

intelligent, very affectionate, very fond of human society, very docile at the
end of his lead, and he had a most pathetic expression, as much as to say, “
Please don’t kill me yet. Let me enjoy for a little longer the sun, the air and
the luscious grass.”

From Joshimath a steep path, a preferable alternative to the long tedious
zigzags of the pilgrim route, descends 1,500 feet to Vishnu Prayag, the
junction of the Alak-nanda and Dhauli Rivers. Perched on a spur between
these rivers is a hamlet and a little square-walled temple whence a flight of
stone steps descends to the Alaknanda River, here known as the Vishnu
Ganga, for the benefit of the pilgrims who wish to immerse themselves in
the sacred waters.

Above Vishnu Prayag, the pilgrim path enters a gorge with sheer
precipices on either side which echo the thunder of the Alaknanda River as it
rages furiously over its steep rock-strewn bed. It was a cool_ still morning
and already the path was thronged with pilgrims. They were an amazing
assortment of men and women : fakirs, with wild, haggard, sunken faces and
unkempt beards, clad only in a loin-cloth, their bodies smeared with ashes,
and fat bunnias, squatting like bloated bull-frogs on charpoys borne by
sweating coolies, their women-folk plodding dutifully in the rear, carrying
the family bedding, cooking-pots and food ; queerest sight of all, little old
men and women, so old it seemed impossible that life could persist within
their fragile shrunken bodies, hunched uncomfortably in wicker baskets on
the backs of coolies. But most were on foot : first father, striding
unencumbered along, and wrapt in meditation, then mother, often as not a
poor weak little creature perhaps 15 years of age, bowed down beneath an
enormous burden, sometimes with a baby in addition on her shoulder.

So they venture on their pilgrimage, these pilgrims, some borne
magnificently by coolies, some toiling along in rags, some almost crawling,
preyed on by disease and distorted by dreadful deformities. And the stench.
Fifty thousand pilgrims for whom sanitation and hygiene have no place in
the dictionary. And not least the flies, millions upon millions of flies. Small
wonder that cholera, dysentery and typhoid are rife along the route,

Something sustains these pilgrims; few seem to enjoy their pilgrimage,
yet their faces are intent, their minds set on their goal. They are over-awed,
too, by their stupendous environment; you can see this in their faces.
Europeans who have read and travelled cannot conceive what goes on in the
minds of these simple folk, many of them from the agricultural parts of
India. Wonderment and fear must be the prime ingredients. So the
pilgrimage becomes an adventure. Unknown dangers threaten the broad

well-made path; at any moment the gods, who hold the rocks in leash, may
unloose their wrath upon the hapless passer-by. To the European it is a walk
to Badrinath; to the Hindu pilgrim it is far, far more.

The path, after crossing the Alaknanda River by a well-built suspension
bridge, traversed a craggy hillside to a small village where the porters halted
to refresh themselves. A mile beyond this village, a rocky bluff marked the
entrance to the Bhyundar Valley. Except for the size of its stream, which
suggested an extensive glacier system, there was little to distinguish the
valley from other side valleys of the Alaknanda Valley. A disreputable little
suspension bridge spans the Alaknanda above the confluence of the two
rivers, and near it I waited for the porters. The sun stood high, and the heat
filled the valley like faintly simmering liquid. Pilgrims were plodding along
the path. Most were clad in white, but here and there were splashes of vivid
colour. Old and young, feeble and infirm, plod, plod, plod. They passed in
their hundreds.

I smoked my pipe in the shade of a boulder and ruminated. Why? What
was the force that impelled them from their homes on the far-off plains to
the Himalayas? What was the force that had impelled me? No concrete
religious motive, but something far more complex and indefinable. Perhaps
the answer lay in this upward bending valley with its dark forests and the
distant glimmer of the high snows.

The porters appeared and one by one crossed the shuddering little bridge,
then halted on the green slope beyond. A rough track passed a small hamlet
at the entrance of the valley, a filthy little place with ankle-deep mire like an
Irish farmyard, then mounted through woods by the side of the sun- wickered
torrent which rushes impetuously over great boulders under a lacery of
spreading trees. Soon the Alaknanda Valley was well behind and the air
partook of a new freshness.

After a steep climb the path emerged from the forest on to cultivated
fields, presided over by a small village. Here a stinging nettle introduced
itself to my bare knees. I do not know its botanical name but it springs up in
Garhwal wherever cultivation upsets the natural order of things. It defends
itself with light-coloured stiletto-like spines, sharper than the sharpest
needle, and is altogether more vicious than the English species. This village
is typical of many in Garhwal. The houses for the most part are single-
storeyed, and their rough stone-tiled roofs are strengthened by additional
stones placed upon them, so that with their wide eaves they resemble in a
remarkable degree the chalets of the upper Alpine pastures. They are fronted
by roughly paved yards in which much of the work of the household is

carried out, such as threshing, weaving and wool-spinning. Most of the
population were working in the fields, but here and there women squatted
engaged in weaving on a simple hand frame helped by their children who,
when they had overcome their fear of the white-skinned stranger with his
stubbly red beard, were all agog with that excitement and curiosity which is
the prerogative of children the world over.

These Garhwalis affect dark-coloured workaday cos-tumes, which, on
occasion, are brightened with coloured shawls, aprons and bandeaux. Like
the Tibetans they are fond of ornaments and trinkets, and there is a distinct
similarity in the costumes of the two peoples, a similarity which becomes
more marked as the Tibetan frontier is approached. As might be supposed,
ex-tensive trading between Garhwal and Tibet over the Niti and Mana
Passes has resulted in a fusion of blood, and the people of the upper valleys
of Garhwal, though Hindus by religion are partly Tibetan in origin. Unlike
some half-breeds the Marcha Bhotias, as they are called, combine many of
the best qualities of the two races. Some of them are shepherds and are used
to scrambling about on steep hillsides, so that they make excellent porters,
and with mountaineering training should rival the Bhotias and Sherpas, who
have done so well on Mount Everest and other high peaks.

Beyond the village the path entered dense deciduous forests, and the
valley narrowed into a gorge with vast sheets and curtains of rock on either
hand, shimmering here and there with gauzy waterfalls. The heat-tempering
breeze died away as the afternoon lengthened, the sun disappeared behind
the hills and not a leaf stirred in the shadowed forests.

We camped in the river-bed on a sandy place which is only covered when
the snows are melting fast or the monsoon rains are torrential. It was my first
camp in the high mountains and I could hardly have chosen a better site. A
few yards away the river hastened through a shallow channel and beyond it
was forest, riven in places by gullies littered with stones and broken trees
brought down by avalanches ending in terrific crags stained black with
seeping water whilst far up the valley a snow-robed peak shone between the
dark precipices of a distant gorge.

It had been a long hot march, but the porters were in great fettle, and
busied themselves collecting driftwood and building a large fire of which the
core was a tree-trunk weighing the best part of a ton, deposited near the
camp by some flood. Dusk fell. The sunlight died on the far peak, and
between the precipices the stars shone out one by one. Nothing moved
except the river. Then, in this profound calm, a small bird in a tree above my
tent broke suddenly into song, a queer little song, plaintive, very sad and

very sweet. It had none of the throaty luxuriance of the nightingale, or the
optimistic pipings of a song-thrush; it was an unhurried little song, a tweet-
tweet or two, then silence, then a sudden trill, then a slow sad note. For a full
half-hour this bird sang its evening hymn, until darkness had thickened in
the valley and the sky filled with stars.

I dined off soup and vegetable curry by the fire; afterwards the men threw
log after log into the blaze until the flames stood high and the tents and
nearby forest were illumined. Presently the moon appeared and transmuted
to the purest silver the torrent and the far snow peak at the head of the
valley. Long after the men had wrapped themselves in their blankets I sat by
.the glowing embers in a great peacefulness of spirit.

CHAPTER V
THE BASE CAMP

NEXT morning, as usual, I breakfasted luxuriously in my sleeping-bag.
There is no better preliminary to a day’s marching than a plateful of
porridge. For the rest, biscuits, butter, jam or marmalade with plenty of tea
or coffee made up my normal repast. Eggs and bacon were lacking, but so
also was my craving for this peculiarly English dish at five in the morning.

The weather was cloudless and the air deliciously cool. This march, I
hoped, would take me to my base camp. The path lay through dense jungle
and as I walked several pheasants flew up in front of me and twice I heard
crashing sounds as of some large beasts making off. Then the path
descended to the river-bed, where to my astonishment we met with a snake.
It was curled on a flat stone and at first sight I took it for a strip of cloth
dropped by a villager. I was about to step on it when it moved and raised an
ugly little head in readiness to strike. It was a brown snake, perhaps fifteen
inches long, with banded markings. The men said it was poisonous and one
of them killed it, but probably it was harmless for, contrary to popular
opinion, harmless snakes form by far the larger percentage in the Himalayas
and, for that matter, on the plains of India.

Some two miles above the camp was a side valley ascending towards
Hathi Parbat. Seen against the brilliant morning light this great mountain
appeared magnificent, and its massive, wall-sided precipices support a
remote little snow-field tapering languidly into a snowy summit. If the col
between it and Gauri Parbat could be reached both mountains should prove
accessible, but it appears totally inaccessible from the west owing to steep
icefalls exposed to ice avalanches from hanging glaciers.

Having passed a small village at” the junction of the two valleys,
populated by cheerful peasants and shep-herds, the path crossed the river by
a bridge consisting of two tree-trunks held in position by cross-pieces, the
interstices of which were filled with stones. Here I was met by a Sikh
surveyor, who was camped in the side valley, a fine-looking man attached to
Major Gordon Osmaston’s party which was engaged in resurveying Garhwal
and Kumaon. He showed me some of his work, which seemed to me to be
careful and well-drawn, but I am no judge of draughtsmanship. He had
discovered that the side valley, instead of ending under Hathi Parbat, as
delineated in the old maps, bends southwards, parallel to the watershed of
the Zaskar Range, and continues for several miles. I asked him whether he
thought that Hathi Parbat could be attacked from the west, but he did not
think it was possible from this side though, as he told me with a smile, he
was as yet no mountaineer, and was only a beginner in the art — a very
necessary art when surveying such rough steep country as this.

The junction of the two valleys is only about 7,500 feet, and beyond it is a
forest of oaks, tree rhododendrons, chestnuts, bamboos and willows, to
mention but a few trees, densely under grown with shrubs and briers.
Abundant proof of a moist climate is afforded by epiphytic ferns suspended
in delicate tendrils from the trees, but of flowers there were few, though here
and there I noticed an arum (Arisaema Wallichianum), which I had seen
already on the foothill ridges, a plant which is more striking than beautiful,
with an evil-looking, cobra-like head, whilst in open places were many
strawberries, daisies and buttercups. Yet there was so little of floral interest
or beauty in the lower and middle sections of the Bhyundar Valley that I
began to wonder whether my memory had tricked me and coloured falsely
some-thing that was dull and uninteresting. However, I could scarcely
grumble: there was no carpet of flowers to beautify my way, but there were
forests, cool and shadowed, and above the forests remote hills, and higher
still a sky of gentian blue untenanted by a single wisp of vapour.

The path climbed steeply, and presently the deciduous trees gave way to
conifers, and the cold smell of dank vegetation and decaying leaves was
replaced by the warm incense of resin. Then it came to a wide sloping alp.
The grass here was less lank and had grown little since the winter snow left
it, but already it was being grazed upon by sheep and goats, whose
shepherds had quartered themselves in stone huts. The height must have
been nearly 10,000 feet, and from peaks on either hand, tongues of snow
descended far into the valley.

Beyond the alp was a forest of firs growing between enormous boulders,
the debris of a great rock-fall. The difference between the lower and upper
forests of the Himalayas must be experienced to be appreciated. The lower
forests, jungles that extend upwards to some 7,000 feet, are full of insect and
animal life, the upper forests are characterised by their silence. My footfalls
were hushed by a carpet of needles, and as I walked I became gradually
aware of this silence, so that when I seated myself on a moss-clad boulder, I
was already accustomed to it. There was no wind, not a whisper in the pine-
tops, and the only sounds were my heart pumping audibly in my ears and the
steady thunder of the valley torrent. Here and there the sunlight had slipped
between the tree-tops, and cast brilliant pools amid the shadow, revealing
moss-plastered boulders and a delicate tracery of ferns. These pools of
sunlight and the shadows of the trees were the only things that moved, and
that very slowly, as the day lengthened.

The path emerged from the forest on to another alp, a favourite haunt of
shepherds to judge from the well-built huts. Here were innumerable blue and
white anemones (A. obtusiloba) and in between them Primula denticulata,
many of which were already in seed.

I crossed two streams and on a high bank beyond the second came on a
monkshood ( Aconitum heterophyllum) with dark green-purple blooms, and a
host of pink rock jasmine (Androsaceprimuloides), lovely little flowers
which never ceased to fascinate me. This androsace is a common enough
plant. You can buy it in England for nine-pence and it is described in
nurserymen’s catalogues as “pretty and easy,” but to appreciate its true
worth, you must see it tumbling over grey boulders in a rosy cascade under
the deep blue of the Himalayan sky, revelling ecstatically in the beauty and
grandeur of its home, eager to perpetuate itself, and sending out its runners
in all directions, each with a little rosette of leaves ready to root in any scrap
of soil or earthy crack. As I walked across this last alp, I saw that beyond it
the valley narrowed into a gorge finer than any I had yet seen. The forest
was compressed between immense walls of rock, of which one was nearly
vertical and the other, that to the east, actually overhung and was fully 1,500
feet high. Even the noonday sun, only a degree or so from the vertical at this
time of the year, could not relieve this gorge of its austerity or impart
kindliness into the stem-visaged crags.

Through the gorge loomed a wall of high rock peaks, and had it not been
for my previous visit to Bhyundar Valley, I might have concluded that the
valley ended abruptly at the base of these peaks.

At the entrance to the gorge the path zigzagged steeply downwards to a
log bridge spanning the river between two large boulders. Over this frail
structure, which is prevented from falling to pieces by bamboo thongs, the
shepherds drive their flocks to the upper pastures of the valley. Any
domestic animal save a hardy Garhwali sheep or goat would be appalled by
such a passage, for the river issues with savage force from the jaws of the
gorge and to fall into it would mean for man or beast instant destruction.

With the thunder of the torrent in my ears, I ascended steeply through a
pine-forest, and presently came to open slopes where the gorge widens. Here
were two gullies filled with hard snow in which I had to cut steps with my
ice axe ; I cut large ones for the benefit of the porters as a slip would have
precipitated a man into the torrent several hundred feet lower. Beyond the
second gully I regained the path, which traversed a steep grassy hillside
where the valley widens out, and bends eastwards almost at right-angles
under the wall of peaks that from below the gorge seems to form an impasse.

Since leaving the village I had been alone, having outstripped the porters.
For weeks and months past I had visualised the Bhyundar Valley as I had
seen it in 1931, but so far I had come upon few flowers. Beauty and
grandeur I had seen in plenty ; valleys, rivers, mountains and vistas such as
only the Himalayas can show, but of floral beauty comparatively little, but
now, as I turned a corner of the path, I saw out of the comer of my eye a
sheet of blue on the hillside. It was a blue fumatory, the Corydalis
cashemiriana. I had seen it once before in Sikkim, or a flower like it,
growing here and there between boulders, but here was a whole slope of it, a
colony of thousands. It is a small plant with a stem six inches high, and
flowers an inch long, narrow, pipe-like and tipped in dark-blue, and so
delicate and beautiful they might have been made for the lips of Pan.

A great avalanche, thousands of tons of snow, had fallen into the valley
just above the gorge and covered the stream bed a hundred feet deep for
several hundred yards. I have never seen the debris of a bigger avalanche
and as it had descended from a peak of not more than 16,000 feet, it was the
proof of an abundant winter snow-fall. Passing it and keeping to the west of
the main torrent, I presently crossed a steep little subsidiary torrent, after an
awkward jump between two boulders, and continued round the bend until I
reached a point where there was a view up the valley to its end. It was the
same view as in 1931, but with a difference. In that year, we had visited the
valley during the monsoon season, when the peaks for the most part were
concealed by clouds and the atmosphere was moist and warm by comparison
with the dry, cold Tibetan winds we had experienced on Kamet; but this was

a pre-monsoon day — the sun shone from a moistureless sky, only the lightest
of fleecy clouds rested on the peaks, and the air was imbued with the vigour
of spring.

In this part of the valley there were camping places innumerable, yet none
of them satisfied me completely. I had several weeks to spend in the valley
and desired perfection. My camping site must be so beautiful that I could
never tire of it, a site where the march of light and shadow would charm me
the day through, where there was shade from the noonday sun, and fuel
un-limited for my camp fires. My eye was caught and arrested by a shelf on
the far side of the valley, an alp that sloped green and smooth, with birch
forests above and below, ending in an almost level lawn. Here if anywhere
was the perfect place. I retraced my steps to the avalanche, crossed the
torrent, and ascending to the lower end of the shelf sat down to await the
porters.

The base camp was pitched at the uppermost end of the shelf, and within a
few minutes the men, with that peculiar facility of Tibetans for digging
themselves in, had converted a nearby hollow into a kitchen, and collected
firewood and water; so that within a quarter of an hour I was comfortably
ensconced in my rickety folding chair drinking a cup of tea.

There was no doubt about it; here was the ideal camping site. On three
sides it was bounded by silver birches with a lower frieze of purple- and
white -flowered rhododendrons. Never have 1 seen finer birches. In the
westerning sun their brilliant foliage and silver bark seemed to partake of the
purity of earth and sky, whilst their leaves, rippling in a light breeze,
suggested some pebble-floored pool of shimmering water. The valley
meadows were 500 feet beneath, and beyond them stood the great wall of
rock peaks now revealed in all its magnificence, a wild uprush of giant crags
biting into the slow pacing clouds.

After this dizzy climb the eye turned almost with relief to the soberer
peaks at the head of the valley, past a tom glacier and subsidiary buttresses,
to the snow-crowned crest of Rataban. Of the gorge there was no sign, it lay
concealed round the bend of the valley, so that to all intents we might have
been cut off from the lower world in some exitless valley inaccessible to
men.

Immediately above the camp lay masses of avalanche snow, that had
swept through channels in the birch forest and strewn timber upon the alp,
enough to keep our fires lighted for weeks, without the necessity of cutting
down a single living branch. Spring had only recently come to the alp, but

already the moist turf was pulsing with life. Between the lank dead herbage
of the previous summer innumerable shoots were pushing upwards, some fat
and stumpy, others thin and spear-like, some uncurling as they rose —
countless plants anxious to perpetuate themselves before the summer was
done and winter’s grip closed in once more.

A few plants were already in bloom. A minute blue gentian spread its tiny
frilled blooms over the turf, just above the camp were hundreds of purple
Primula denticulata, and here and there a white allium was clustered — a
graceful plant with a bulb which, as I soon discovered, was excellent to eat.

One of my first jobs was to pay off the Dotials, It is usual in such cases
for the native to assume at the outset that his employer is out to do him down
and the foreman, having been summoned, squatted before me with such an
expression of mingled distrust, cunning and relief (at being paid at all!) on
his wizened pippin-like face that it was all I could do not to laugh. However,
the business was settled amicably and without the usual corrosive and
entirely unprofitable arguments which result from the payee’s primitive
knowledge of arithmetic. One rupee per man for each day’s outward march,
half-pay for the return journey and some “baksheesh,” minus such advances
of pay as had already been made. It was perfectly simple but it took an hour
of noisy argument between the Dotials to convince themselves that they had
not been swindled; then the pippin-faced foreman, doubt and suspicion
removed from his beaming countenance, returned and expressed himself as
satisfied and more than satisfied; if the sahib wanted him and his men for the
return journey, well, he had only to send word to Ranikhet.

By the time these financial details had been settled and the stores
unpacked and arranged in a spare tent it was evening. A warm light filled the
valley and the lengthening shadows revealed unsuspected grandeurs and
beauties in the great rock walls opposite. The light breeze had fallen to a
complete calm and not a leaf of the birches quivered. Quickly the sun dipped
behind the Khanta Khal pass which we had crossed in 1931 from the
Bhyundar Valley to the Alaknanda Valley. Best of all the men were
contented. Wangdi came up to me with a happy grin on his hard face. He
swept his arm in a single comprehensive gesture over the birches and across
the valley, past the glowing snows of Rataban. “Ramro, sahib!” He was
right; it was beautiful. While Tewang cooked the supper, Pasang, Wangdi
and Nurbu collected wood, so that by the time the sun had set and a chill
crept into the air I was comfortably seated by a roaring log fire.

Let me confess at once that I am an incurable romantic. Since the days
when I devoured G. A. Henry and Fennimore Cooper I have looked upon the

camp fire as a necessary adjunct of enjoyable travel. What is the charm of it?
Is it because it panders to deep-seated hereditary instincts? Are we for all our
central-heated homes and “no draught” ventilation system essentially
primitive at heart? Have our cave-men ancestors handed on to us an animal-
like love of its warmth and light, and safety from bestial marauders? And
has such love been transmuted to something purely romantic? Will
civilisation grind out of man all his ancient qualities, his fierce unreasoning
passions, his hopes and fears, his love of nature and primitive things? Does
peace and security spell effeminacy and deterioration of the virile qualities?
What will we become when the need to struggle for our existence is
banished from the perfect world promised us by philosophers, economists
and pacifists? Perhaps in this a reason is to be found for all forms of physical
adventure. The qualities that have given us domination over the beast, that
demand safety not as a dead level of existence but in opposition to danger
continue to find an outlet for their activity in sports labelled dangerous,
useless or unjustifiable. Peace between men is not incompatible with
maintenance of physical virility when so many adventures are possible in the
open air. Whether it be the cricket or rugger field or the heights of the
Himalayas there is enough to satisfy this adventurous spirit of ours without
resort to the soul-deadening work of killing our fellow men. It remains to be
seen how our inherited instincts are to be adapted to our need of peace and
happiness, the two things which men crave most. I am sure myself that they
are to be found in the open air, and that the present movement in this
direction, not only in Britain but in many other countries, is an unconscious
revolt against the primeval desire to kill in order to maintain physical safety
and virility and represents the growth of the human intelligence towards a
new and happier conception of the universe and human relationships. Most
of all does it indicate a Divine desire for the physical, mental and spiritual
progress of mankind. Who are we to talk of degenera-tion and retrogression
in a God-made world?

It was the first time I had travelled alone in the Himalayas and the
experience after the last two caravan-serais to Mount Everest was more than
refreshing. For the first time in .my life I was able to think. I do not mean
to think objectively or analytically, but rather to surrender thought to my
surroundings. This is a power of which we know little in the west but which
is a basic of abstract thought in the east. It is allowing the mind to receive
rather than to seek impressions, and it is gained by expurgating extraneous
thought. It is then that the Eternal speaks; that the mutations of the universe
are apparent: the very atmosphere is filled with life and song; the hills are

resolved from mere masses of snow, ice and rock into something
living. When this happens the human mind escapes from the bondage of its
own feeble imaginings and becomes as one with its Creator.

My pen has run away with me; it often did when recording my
impressions in the Valley of Flowers, for it is impossible to continue along
conventional channels when the country on either side is so fair, so even
though I am not understood or at risk of being labelled “sentimental” — a red
rag this word to the bull of materialism — I must endeavour to record my
impressions during my sojourn in this valley.

That first evening I sat long by the camp fire until the talk in the porters’
tents had dwindled away and the silence was complete save for the light,
almost imperceptible hiss of the burning logs. Presently even that died and
the fire shrank to a heap of glowing embers. The cold stole up behind me;
suddenly I was chilly and my pipe was out. A few minutes later I was warm
in my eiderdown sleeping-bag. The last thing I saw before closing my eyes
was a bright star poised on a distant ridge looking at me through the door of
the tent.

The sun rose above Rataban at 6.20 next mornings I awoke to birdsong —
a great chorus from the surround-ing birch forest and rhododendron brakes.
Most prominent was a small undistinguished brown bird, of the corncrake
family I should say. I dubbed it the zeederzee bird for this most nearly
describes its song. It was a perfect morning, not a cloud, and the dew-soaked
grass shone like a pavement of frosted glass in the brilliant sunlight.

Nurbu brought me my breakfast as I lay slothfully in my sleeping-bag.
Occasionally Pasang officiated, but more often it was Nurbu, and his
cheerful smile was a happy beginning to a day.

As I ate the usual porridge, biscuits and jam there seemed to be something
missing, pleasantly missing. Then I remembered — the flies. Except for the
camp on the Kuari Pass, flies had been with me all the way from Ranikhet;
they had become a part of the natural order of things. And now there were
no flies; it seemed almost too good to be true.

After breakfast the Dotials, who had bivouacked close by, left for
Ranikhet. They seemed well contented and the pippin-faced foreman, for
about the tenth time, announced his readiness to return with his men.

Leaving Tewang to mind the camp, Wangdi, Nurbu, Pasang and I set off
on a tour of inspection.

Immediately below the camp we found a rough sheep track running
downwards through the steep birch forest. It was partly overgrown with

vegetation but some vigorous work with a kukri soon cleared a way. Here, as
on the alp above, Primula denticulate was growing. This plant seems to like
shade and sun almost equally well so long as it receives plenty of moisture at
the roots, but a moist place in the sun is probably ideal.

Below us we could hear the roar of the torrent and soon we were
slithering down a snow-slope between it and the lowermost edge of the
forest. Immediately to the east of the camp was a wide gully, and a huge
spring avalanche pouring down this had bridged the torrent so that we were
able to cross without difficulty to the other side of the valley. Here on well-
drained south-facing slopes many plants were already in bloom. As we
scrambled up a steep grassy buttress between clumps of dark green juniper I
saw growing on a skyline above the same dark purple monkshood I had seen
below the gorge; then the white umbels of Anemone polyanthes which is
closely allied with Anemone narcissiflora, with Corydalis cashemiriana
brilliantly blue in between.

A steep scramble and we stood on a wide shelf littered with boulders and
there grew a plant which is one of the rarest and most beautiful of its family,
the lily-like Nomocharis oxypetela. In colour this nomocharis is very
different to the nomocharis nana which also grows in the Bhyundar Valley;
the latter is blue, the former a creamy yellow. Obviously it revels in the sun
on well-warmed, well-drained meadows and slopes where there is plenty of
fibrous material and rocks to feed its roots with moisture.

I set the men to work to collect bulbs and presently they had dug up two
or three dozen with their ice-axes. It was not easy work, for the nomocharis
bulb grows a full six inches deep and its favourite habitat is a dense matting
of bracken roots and sometimes juniper roots between boulders and stones.

Another plant in bloom was a purple orchis one to two feet high, whilst
the ubiquitous little Iris kumaonensis was approaching its best — thousands
of blooms on the stony hillside. Then, over the rocks, the pink Androsace
primuloides was fast spreading its silver-green rosettes and pink flowers.

A light breeze had sprung up and before it the nomocharis nodded and
bowed their golden heads. In slow waves it rippled across the slopes,
bringing an indescribable scent of plant life, with now and then a breath of
delightful thyme-like perfume, which I soon found emanated from a purple-
flowered plant that creeps over the sunny faces of boulders and dry slopes.

We returned to camp for lunch, after which I busied myself pressing the
specimens collected during the morning. I had never pressed flowers prior to
this expedition and I must confess I found it an irksome and finicking task.

The remainder of the afternoon I spent collecting in the vicinity of the camp.
Among the plants I discovered was a fleshy leafed bergenia (B. Stracheyi)
growing between moss-clad boulders on “a northern slope, and in the forest
behind the camp a wood lily, Trillium Govanianum. Not far from the camp
was a bank facing south already gay with flowers, including Nomocharis
oxypetela, whilst on the edge of the gully east of the camp a creamy dwarf
rhododendron common throughout the Himalayas and many parts of Tibet
was in bloom together with the delicate little creamy bells of a cassiope
( C.fastigiata).

At tea-time Tewang announced that he had a bad foot and that it was now
hurting him up the leg to the groin. He had blistered it during the march and
the sore had festered, but like any other happy-go-lucky Tibetan it had never
occurred to him to mention it until his whole leg was poisoned. Before I
could treat him I made him wash his foot. I do not suppose he had ever
consciously washed in his life and he performed the ablution with a sort of
pained surprise and indignant resignation. Needless to say his foot was
filthy, the dirt of years being caked between the toes. It would seem an
impossible task to make the Tibetan realise the connection between dirt and
disease, the one just dirt, the other an affliction meted out by the Gods. This
done, I scraped and probed the wound with a scalpel until blood and pus
flowed in generous quantities, afterwards bandaging it with lint. The sight of
the blood heartened Tewang and his broad flat face broke into a beaming
smile. “Now I shall be all right,” he declared. And so indeed he was, for in
a few days the trouble had cleared up completely.

That evening I supped again by a great fire. During the heat of the day a
breeze flowed up the valley, but it dropped at sundown to a complete calm
so that I could light my pipe with an unshielded match and the sound of the
stream served only to emphasise the profound stillness. The clouds ebbed
fast from the peaks and a silent rush of mist swept up through the gorge and
passed across the opposite hillside. The sunlight died and the night came
swiftly; in less than half an hour from the time the sun set it was dark except
for the coldest and faintest of afterglows on the high peaks, a light matching
the pale brilliance of the stars.

The fire of birch logs burned perfectly, red and blue flames with scarcely
any smoke, and in its light the faces of the men stood out from the darkness
against a still darker background of forest.

The moon became apparent, a brilliant crescent riding high overhead; it
silvered the snows and glaciers and lit the gathering dew with a cold fire.

Slowly, as the air required equilibrium, the low valley mists dissolved
until by 8.30 not one vestige remained.

A bird sang during the first hour of darkness, a curious song that I had not
heard before ; chuck, chuck, chuck, chuck, eee, chuck, chuck chuck, chuck,
eee ; something between that of a nightjar and a corncrake, but presently it
stopped and all that remained of sound was the steady rumbling of the
glacier torrent.

CHAPTER VI
A MINOR CLIMB

immediately above the camp the birch forest swept up in an unbroken
sheet for some 500 feet. Above it were open slopes still snow-covered,
whence rose the steep ridges of a peak about 17,000 feet high. This peak I
decided to climb, for not only would it provide an admirable training
expedition, but it should command a panorama of the Bhyundar Valley and
its surroundings. So on June 19 th , after an early but leisurely breakfast,
Wangdi, Nurbu, Pasang and I set off to exercise our climbing machinery.
We avoided the fatigue of forcing our way through the forest by ascending a
grassy’ ridge bounding the gully to the east of the camp. Two hundred feet
higher, this ridge tailed out into snow-slopes broken only by Occasional
rocky outcrops and incipient ridges. The snow was hard frozen and we made
rapid progress. We were passing one of the rocky outcrops when a flare of
imperial purple caught my eye and I halted to admire a superb primula.
Fully ten inches high, it rose in regal dignity from a centre of thin mealy
leaves, rooted in a moist crack generously fed by snow water, which oozed
over a slab in con-vulsive jerks beneath a film of ice. I think it was the dark
blue form of Primula nivalis macrophylla.

Above this point the slope steepened and presently we were forced to
kick, and sometimes to cut, steps. Here, for the first time, I was able to
observe the dif-ferent climbing styles of my companions. Wangdi was the
most experienced of the trio, but he had not learnt to move rhythmically, and
put a great deal of unnecessary effort into his climbing, kicking his steps
with a restless, untiring vigour and so viciously he might have had a grudge
against the snow. Nurbu followed docilely, obviously intent on learning all
he could about the finer points of mountaineering. Pasang, on the other hand,
had not the remotest idea of rhythm or co-ordinated movement. He moved
jerkily and in rushes, breathing heavily the while, and appeared incapable of
transferring his weight gradually from one foot to the other so that it seemed

he might slip at any moment. After a while I made him lead in the hope of
teaching him the art of walking up a snow-slope, but it was all in vain; he
was wedded to his own method, or lack of method. So I left him to his own
devices and he went rushing on ahead, kicking steps as though his life
depended on reaching the summit in the least possible time, and of course
soon had to stop for a rest. It is indeed curious that these Tibetans, and the
same applies to the Sherpas, who spend their lives among the hills, have
never learned to walk uphill easily; they have to be taught this art by
Europeans with not half their experience of hill- walking.

As we mounted, making height at the rate of nearly 1,500 feet an hour, the
green valley fell away, shrinking as it did so, and the wall of rock peaks
opposite increased in apparent stature and grandeur. Presently a peak well to
the north-east came into view, an isolated, pyramidal, wall-sided mountain
rising head and shoulders above its neighbours that reminded me of
photo-graphs of Mount Robson in the Canadian Rockies. Later, I learned
that Lieutenant Gardiner, who had been surveying the district, had named it
Nilgiri Parbat, and had placed its height at 21,264 feet. Could it be climbed?
Certainly not from the Bhyundar Valley, though to judge from the general
angle of its ridges, the north face was probably less formidable.

At all events it would be well worth reconnoitring; though to approach it
from the north would mean for-saking the Bhyundar Valley in favour of a
parallel valley, to reach which it would be necessary to force a pass over the
wall of rock peaks, separating the two valleys.

Without any difficulty we gained the crest of a minor spur. Barhal (wild
sheep) had been there before us, and their tracks zigzagged aimlessly about
the snow-slopes. Kicking steps, we advanced steadily, and within three
hours of leaving the camp had gained the east ridge of our peak at a point
about 500 feet below the-summit.

A brisk little wind was blowing across the ridge, but we sheltered from it
under some sun-warmed rocks a few feet below the crest and ate a meal. It
was a beautiful morning, and the sky in our vicinity was un-clouded. In the
south, dense pillars of cumulus were rising from the valleys and between
them we discerned the snow-fields of Trisul and the massive spire of Nanda
Devi. Separating us from these two great mountains were the subsidiary
spurs and ridges of the main Zaskar Range, a bewildering labyrinth of rocky
edges, and up-tilted strata over which the eye wandered restlessly, seeking
lodgement but finding none until, wearied of sheer savagery, it passed to the
west where Nilkanta stood solitary and serene, the undisputed queen of the
Badrinath Peaks. The mists were slowly embracing it, but before they

concealed it I examined the final pyramid through my monocular glass.
The only route that seemed to offer the remotest chance of success was the
south-east ridge. The lower part of this was hidden behind nearer mountains,
but if in the upper part a rock step several hundred feet high could be
surmounted, the upper slopes of snow and ice should prove feasible. After a
hall of half an hour in the sun, we continued on our way. From the point at
which we gained the ridge, the peak springs up steeply in a serrated edge of
reddish rock. It was possible to avoid this obviously difficult crest by
scrambling up the disagreeably loose south face, but for the sake of exercise
and training I determined to attempt it. To begin with, there was little
difficulty, but presently we came to a steep slab. Here I had a further
opportunity of observing the methods of my companions. Wangdi made
light of it but did not scruple to use the rope as a hand-hold, although the
holds, if small, were sufficient. Pasang, though more at home on rocks than
on snow, was very ungainly, and inclined to pull himself up by strength of
arm. Nurbu was the best of all, and his swift effortless agility convinced me
then and there that in him were the makings of a first-rate mountaineer.

Above this preliminary slab was a wall which I found distinctly trying.
Furthermore, a tightness in my head, that had accrued during the past hour or
so, was rapidly developing into one of those jarring headaches which result
from lack of acclimatisation to altitude.

From the top of this second pitch, the ridge rose in an overhanging tower
culminating in a fang-like point and was completely inaccessible. The
alternative, as already mentioned, was the south face. To reach it, we had to
descend an unpleasantly loose chimney where Pasang, now the last man
down, managed to dislodge an angular block of rock weighing a fair
hundredweight, which flew close to those below before shattering itself into
fragments. Then tongues wagged and hard things were said, and it was a
very abashed and painfully careful Pasang who descended the remainder of
the chimney.

A traverse across some rickety ledges, and a scramble up the decaying
face brought us to the summit. Mists were forming, but between them the
nearer mountains showed and, more distantly, the buttresses of Gauri Parbat
and Hathi Parbat. The day was now windless and warm, but I was in no
mood to appreciate this or the grandeur of my surroundings, for my
headache had become worse and every movement sent a thrill of pain from
the base of the skull to a point just above the eyes. The descent was a
purgatory. I could scarcely see straight and vomiting supervened, but this did
not relieve the headache — it increased it, if that were pos-sible. After what

seemed an age, owing to the clumsiness of Pasang and the consequent
necessity to move one at a time, we got off the rocks and began the descent
of the snow-slopes. Had it not been for my mountain sickness I should have
enjoyed the longest glissade of my experience, as it was possible to descend
about 4,000 feet of snow-slopes to a point within two minutes’ walk of the
camp. Wangdi glissaded expertly, and Nurbu was a trier, but Pasang was
hopeless and it was not long before he slipped and descended un-gracefully
on his back for some hundreds of feet, drop-ping his ice-axe, which the
good-natured Nurbu re-covered. Except for Wangdi, who was soon out of
sight, it was a melancholy procession. First of all myself, able to
glissade only a few yards at a time owing to the pain in my head, then
Nurbu, and lastly the unfortunate Pasang, scrabbling about like a beetle on a
sheet of glass. And so at length to the camp, where Wangdi and Tewang
greeted me with broad, unsympathetic grins and a mugful of steaming hot
tea. My first peak had not been enjoyable.

CHAPTER VII
THE SNOW COL

THE two days following the ascent of the minor peak I devoted to flower
collecting. The weather was already appreciably warmer, and at night
lightning flickered in the south. The monsoon was approaching, and as
though in anticipation of its warm, life-giving breath, plants sprang up
everywhere with astonishing rapidity. Already the green bells of a fritillary
(F. Roylei) surrounded the camp. This is an unobtrusive flower, but it has a
charm of its own, a delicacy surpassing that of many more showy flowers.
As the green bells on their springy stems nodded and dipped vivaciously in
the light breezes, I half expected to hear the tinkling of fairy chimes over the
alp. Maybe they sounded, but not to mortal ears.

By the stream I came on a bank blue with cynoglossum (C. glochidiatum),
a blue that matched the midday sky. Then there was a moist place on the
opposite side of the valley, yellow and purple with marigolds and Primula
denticulata. It was an incongruous combination of colours which would look
out of place, perhaps ugly, in a garden, yet if Nature is sometimes reckless,
her taste is unerring. Picture a golden carpet quivering ceaselessly in the
wind, with violet splashes between, and the clear waters of a stream lapping
over the grey boulders in little collars of foam, or reposed in deep quiet
pools that mirror the peaks and sky. In the middle distance the valley-sides
sweep upwards, green at first, then blue, breaking on high in bleak and

desolate crags, and beyond, the massive buttresses of Rataban, their harsher
details softened by distance, supporting snowfields and silver-edged ridges
etched against the intensely blue sky.

In Britain the atmosphere subtly deceives our estima-tion of height and
distance, but in the moisture-free atmosphere of the Himalayas the peaks
look high be-cause they are high. At midday they gleam like polished steel
under a nearly vertical sun and the eye sinks with relief to the green valley
floor. Yet if in the matter of detail and height little or nothing is left to the
imagination, the colourings compensate; in this bril-liant atmosphere they
are celestial. Possibly the ultra-violet in the light at high altitudes has
something to do with this. Take a knot weed, the little Polygonum affine, one
of the representative plants of the Central Himalayas: it colours the hillside
in millions upon millions of rosy blooms, and the glow of it may be seen a
mile away, lighting the slopes. Yet in England, it is a poor dull-coloured
flower, and becomes lank and attenuated in our soft climate. Even such an
unpretentious flower as a yellow violet (Viola biflora) imparts to itself some
quality of sun and atmosphere, for it shines like a star from the coarser
herbage.

The second day saw the death of Montmorency. I was loath indeed to kill
him, for he had become an institution, but fresh meat was necessary. For
nearly three weeks I had lived on a vegetarian diet, and though it suited me
admirably in some ways I discovered that I was not going as strongly on
hills as I should have done, whilst my craving for meat, which had remained
temporarily in abeyance, had returned with twofold force. I was tired of
vegetable curries, so I cast hungry, predatory eyes on poor Montmorency
and ordered his execution. It was a grisly business. The men, unwilling to
lose any of his blood, scraped and cleaned a large rock slab, then trussing
Montmorency’s legs together, they laid him on the slab like a sacrifice and a
moment later a razor-edged kukri had severed his head from his body. But if
goats have souls, then perhaps Montmorency looked down with certain
complacency on the subsequent proceedings, for his meat, having been
buried in a snow-drift, lasted for more than a fortnight, whilst his skin, after
being well scraped, afforded an excellent carpet for the floor of the porters’
tent. For the remainder of the day the men scraped and flogged it, and even
put it in their tent with them at night. But here Montmorency got something
of his own back. Even the Tibetans have a power of smell, though it is
seldom obvious, and in the night I woke to hear a chorus of oaths, then the
sound of something being hurled into outer darkness. It was the skin of
Montmorency.

One of my memories of 1931 was of a col at the head of the Bhyundar
Valley. It is a col that no mountaineer could look at without wanting to
ascend; a parabola of pure snow, between Rataban and a minor unnamed
peak to the north. I determined, therefore, to pitch a camp on it and, if
possible, attempt the ascent of Rataban, via its steep north ridge.

After a night of distant lightning, Midsummer Day dawned with a murky,
watery sky. We were off at 6.30, leaving Tewang at the base camp, carrying
five days’ food, and light equipment. The men were lightly laden, but soon
they began to make heavy weather of the march up the valley. It was
obvious that they had been over-eating themselves with the innards of
Mont-morency. The Tibetan is perforce normally a vege-tarian, but when he
can get meat he stuffs himself until he is scarcely able to move. I was not
exactly comfortable myself, having dined very heartily off Montmorency’s
liver, and this heavy meat meal, after nearly three weeks’ abstinence from
meat, had put a strain on the digestive organs ; so our progress was slow
and subject to many halts.

Having crossed the snow-bridge below the camp, we ascended along the
northern side of the valley. It was easy going, at first between boulders, then
along the wide, dry stream-bed, which was littered with the remains of
avalanches fallen during the spring. I was surprised to notice that the
northernmost slopes of the valley had been extensively burned. Wangdi
explained that this had been done by shepherds the previous summer,
presumably with the object of improving the fertility of the ground, and. of
destroying numerous juniper bushes which encumbered the slopes. This
burning could only have been accomplished some time after the end of the
monsoon season or during a spell of very dry weather.

On the way up the valley we passed two shepherds’ huts. It is the practice
in these mountains for the shepherds to let their flocks wander over the
hillsides during the daytime, but to round [hem up at night in a space near
their huts to prevent them from straying or being attacked by bears. These
rounding-up places are distinguishable by the weeds that grow on them. It
was also very noticeable in Garhwal that where extensive grazing is
permitted, the smaller and tenderer plants are soon eliminated and in their
place spring up a tall knot weed (Polygonum polyslachyum) and an even
taller balsam (Impatiens Roylei). Once these two plants have got a hold of
the ground, pastureland is per-manently ruined and I noticed a number of
places in the Bhyundar Valley where this had occurred.

Beyond the second shepherds’ hut, the flowers were abundant. In a
marshy place where a stream seeped between cushions of bright green moss,

grew a tall white primula (P. intolucratd) , and near by was a small dank
alcove in the rocks, padded with moss, where a trickle of water fell like
liquid silver into a pool girt around with rosy knot weed. This pool emptied
in its turn into a larger stream with rocky banks, already gay with white
anaphdis, an everlasting flower with a golden centre, whilst on higher, drier
places, yet with their roots well down in moist fissures, Androsace
primuloides grew in thousands of pink blooms, exuding a sweet, almost
musky scent impossible to analyse or describe.

We next crossed a hillside and there on a corner I came on the bright blue
Eritrichium strictum which, in my ignorance, I mistook at first for a forget-
me-not. It is a cousin of that Alpine king of flowers, the Eritrichium nanum,
but unlike the latter is comparatively easy to cultivate in England. Its colour
reminded me of an eritrichium I had seen in Tibet during the 1936 Mount
Everest Expedition. We were crossing the Doya La, a pass of about 16,000
feet, into the Kharta Valley when we came upon a cushion-like plant
covered in almost stalk less brilliant blue forget-me-not-like flowers. I have
never been able to discover its name, nor is there any mention of it in any list
of plants collected during the Mount Everest expeditions.

Our route was the same as that followed by shepherds who cross the
Bhyundar Pass, and presently we came to the place where the Kamet
Expedition had camped in 1931. The tent platforms in the grass-slope were
still visible, and though the flowers were not as advanced as they had been
then, there were enough to remind me of what Holdsworth had written, “
Where we pitched our tents it was impossible to cut a sod of turf from the
ground without destroying a primula or a fritillary.”

To gaze upon an old camping site years after is like returning to the
scenes of one’s youth. It inspires a sadness as well as an interest. Six years
had passed since we camped there and now we were scattered the world.
Life is too short, its memories too evanescent; I was the only one to return to
the Valley of Flowers.

Above this camping place the glacier forked into two glaciers, one of
which originates on Gauri Parbat, the other on Rataban and Nilgiri Parbat.
Both are extensively moraine-covered, and with the winter’s snow half-
melted presented a dreary appearance. The fast-melting snow on the peaks
was bringing down many stone-falls; a steep rock buttress at the junction of
the glaciers grumbled ceaselessly and although half a mile from the base of
it, I could distinctly hear the hum and whine of falling rocks. But the most
impressive rock-fall came from a peak to the south of the main glacier, and
must have weighed hundreds of tons. Not content to follow any prescribed

route the stones leapt furiously down the mountainside and across the lower
grass-slopes, leaving long scars in their wake. Among them was a block the
size of a house, which took the side moraine of the glacier in its stride and
rushed a full hundred yards out on to the ice.

Where the rough shepherds’ track passed beneath a crag, I saw a small
yellow flower which I dug up with my ice axe and discovered to be bulbous.
It proved to be the yellow star of Bethlehem (Gagea lutea). Beyond this crag
the track mounted a gully, then climbed steeply to a turfy shoulder. There
were juniper bushes here, so we were able to collect some fuel. The men
were in better form now, having to some extent walked off the effects of
Montmorency, and while they occupied themselves with the juniper, I
wandered about the hill-side collecting specimens. I had not to look far
before I saw a minute and almost stem less primula with a pink star-shaped
flower, peeping up from densely clustered masses of foliage. This was
Primula minutissima, one of the smallest of primulas. Then there was a
cinquefoil, the yellow variety of Potentilla argyrophylla, which at this
height is considerably smaller than its wine-red brother. I also found a cross
between it and the red variety, and this is perhaps the most beautiful of all,
for in colour it reminded me of a yellow sunset splashed with scarlet, the
whole uniting to form a superb deep orange.

Having loaded ourselves with wood, we followed the crest of a side
moraine. Here, growing among the grit and stones were numerous rock
plants, among them sedums and what I knew from Holdsworth’s description
must be Androsace poissonii, a little white flower that grows from cushions
of silver wool-like foliage. But as Holdsworth wrote, “It spreads into big
masses in open peaty places and seems to need no stone,” and I found it later
covering such ground.

Presently we left the moraine in favour of the snow-covered glacier. This
glacier, like the main Bhyundar Glacier, bifurcates in its turn. The
easternmost branch, which has its origin under Rataban and the snow col,
forms in its lowermost portion an impressive ice-fall, bisected horizontally
by a belt of cliffs over which the ice is precipitated every minute or two,
recompacting itself on the glacier beneath. This ice-fall is inaccessible to
direct attack, but can be outflanked by following the route towards the
Bhyundar Pass almost to the pass, then traversing to the south-east on to the
snow-field above it.

A prominent buttress to the west of the ice-fall affords a good approach to
a steeply sloping snow-covered shelf, which I knew must be traversed before
a direct ascent could be made to the Bhyundar Pass. As I scrambled up it,

well ahead of the men, I came once again upon the dark blue Primula nivalis
macrophylla. Every moist place held its quota of these glorious flowers
which charged the still afternoon air with their subtle fragrance, whilst a
little higher grew the light blue variety, which seems to combine the colours
of earth and sky, the blue of the Himalayan sky and the duskier blue of the
valley.

We camped on a shelf formed by an overhangings crag. All around,
between clumps of dwarf rhododendrons, the turf was starred with Primula
minutissima, and close by was a small cave whence a rivulet trickled down a
mossy gully gay with androsaces. The ice-fall was close at hand and every
minute or so there was a, harsh roar of falling debris, with now and then the
thunderous crash of a larger avalanche.

Mist had formed during the afternoon, but at sundown it melted away at
our level and we looked across a sea of vapour, its topmost waves reddened
by the declining sun, to a snow-peak south of the Bhyundar Valley. The base
of this peak was mist-shrouded, but the summit stood out sharply against a
green sky. It was of pure snow, and there was a beautifully moulded ridge
that ran straight as a die to the crest. The map does not indicate its presence,
but that was not surprising. Was it climbable? If so, from which valley? It
would be necessary to reconnoitre the approaches to it. Mountaineering
difficulties in the Himalayas are two-fold: that of climbing a mountain, and
that of finding a route to one or other of the ridges of that mountain; and the
second difficulty is sometimes greater than the first.

As the sun sank it lit Rataban, which I examined with interest through my
monocular glass. The north ridge rising from the snow col looked
formidable, if not impossible, in its lowermost portion, and about 800 feet
above the col was an overhanging nose that appeared entirely inaccessible to
direct attack. The east face of the mountain was not visible and failing a
route on it the most hopeful alternative was a route up the northwest face.
There were two or three minor rock-ridges and though the face as a whole
looked steep and complicated, there seemed reason to suppose that with
good conditions it could be ascended to a point on the north ridge above the
overhanging nose. Once on the snow-covered uppermost portion of the
ridge, the summit should prove accessible. Even as I gazed at the great
mountain the sunlight moved quickly up it to be superseded quickly by the
cold night shadow.

The men cooked a tasteful supper, but I had scarcely time to eat it before a
violent wind rose. To sleep afterwards was impossible owing to the wildly
flapping canvas of my tent, but the rising moon came as a signal and with

that incalculable suddenness peculiar to atmospheric conditions in high
mountains this ephemeral wrath of the elements ended as abruptly as it
began.

Pasang awakened me soon after five next morning. I wish I could muster
the vim and cheerfulness of a Tibetan at this drear, cold hour. When he
attended to me he always did so clumsily and with a take-it-or-leave-it
manner, but this last was only a mannerism.

Our way lay diagonally upwards across snow-slopes and two wide gullies.
The snow was frozen and a slip would have precipitated a man over the
cliffs below; so we roped up at the camp. So hard was the snow that in many
places it was necessary to cut steps, but apart from this there was no
difficulty and presently, when we came to a ridge of broken rocks, we
advanced unroped. The rock-ridge ended a short distance below the
Bhyundar Pass and we roped up again for the traverse which took us across
the snow-field above the ice-fall. In a very short time we were at the foot of
the final slopes leading to the col. The weather was now uncertain and mists
had already formed. We were unable to see clearly and because of this I
disliked the look of a snowy corridor between some seracs (ice pinnacles)
and the slopes of the minor unnamed peak to the north-west of the col, as the
debris of avalanches was lying there and I could not tell whether it was of
snow or ice; if the latter, we would be well advised to avoid it.

The alternative route, which I decided was the safer, went straight up
through the seracs, and provided us with some pretty ice-work. In one place
we had to descend into and climb out of a wide crevasse well bridged with
snow, with a steep upper lip 40 feet high. It was fatiguing work, especially
for laden men, and we were glad to reach unbroken slopes above. Thence-
forwards, it was a monotonous plug up steep slopes in thick mist to the crest
of the col, where the two tents were pitched, partly on stones and partly on
snow and ice.

It had been a short and, in the main, easy ascent and after lunch clearer
weather tempted me to work off my superfluous energy in scaling the minor
unnamed peak of about 19,000 feet to the north-west of the col. A ridge, at
first broken rock, then of snow, leads to the summit, and as there was no
difficulty or danger about the climb I decided to go alone and was on the
summit within an hour of leaving the camp.

The view of Rataban across the col confirmed the conclusions I had
already reached. It was useless to attempt the north ridge directly from the
col, whilst the east face was entirely impracticable owing to sheer precipices

swept by avalanches from a hanging glacier perched on the uppermost
slopes of the mountain. The north-west face, however, was more hopeful,
and provided that a belt of steep rocks about two-thirds of the way up it
could be climbed, it should be possible to reach the north ridge and follow it
over snow to the summit.

In other directions the view was partially obscured by clouds, but I could
see the Banke Glacier 5,000 feet beneath to the north-east, and beyond it a
complicated muddle of rock peaks. The view to the north and north-west
was totally obscured and I was disappointed at not seeing the Mana Peak and
Kamet. It was pleasantly warm on the summit, but there was something
about the atmosphere I did not like, an indefinable feeling of Impending
storm.

I descended leisurely to the camp where Wangdi welcomed me with a cup
of tea. The remainder of the day passed uneventfully, except that now and
then an ice avalanche thundered down the eastern precipice from the
hanging glacier already mentioned. Towards sunset a chill wind rose and it
was apparent from the sky that a storm was about to break. The west was
filled with boiling clouds, but to the north-east I could see the distant rust-
coloured plateau of Tibet beyond ranges of snow-streaked peaks. More to
the east, a storm was centred on the Nepalese border, and a vast anvil-shaped
cloud was linked with the earth by steel-blue rain streaked grey with hail and
snow, whilst other clouds were scattered like glowing embers along the
Himalayas.

It was a magnificent but desolate scene, and a biting wind soon hustled us
into our sleeping-bags. I slept lightly but moderately well, only to wake at 3
a.m. with a sense of impending danger. There seemed no reason to suspect
danger of any kind, but presently I noticed a curious feeling as though a
cobweb covered my face. At first, in my drowsy condition, I thought it was a
cobweb, and several times put up my hand in an attempt to brush it away,
but presently, when I was fully awake, I realised that it was an effect of
electrical tension, for I had experienced the same sensation on several
occasions in the Alps. It is not a happy situation lying in a tent pitched on the
very crest of a ridge knowing that an electrical storm is brewing, and ever
since I was struck on the Schreckhom I have dreaded lightning, for it is the
least combatable of all Nature’s forces on a mountain.

During the next minute or two, the feeling of tension increased rapidly,
then, suddenly, there was a mauve glare, a pause of less than one second and
a muffled roar of thunder that seemed to come from every direction like
some subterranean explosion. Then came the wind, blasting across the ridge

with such force that it threatened to tear away the camp and hurl it down the
precipice. But the tents had been well pitched, for with memories of what
Himalayan gales may accomplish on Everest such an important detail was
not to be overlooked.

Happily there were no more lightning discharges, but snow fell so heavily
that by five o’clock it was clear that not only must our attempt on Rataban
be post-poned, hut that we would be well advised to retreat, before it
accumulated to such a depth as to render the slopes below the col dangerous
from avalanches. So I shouted to the men and eventually succeeded in
waking them. They must have thought me a fool not to wait until the
blizzard abated, for the Tibetan, though he may be a good climber, has little
or no conception of the finer points of mountaineering and cannot appreciate
danger until it occurs. However, after I had done my best to explain the
position, they showed alacrity in packing up the camp.

In the matter of sheer unpleasantness breaking camp on an exposed
Himalayan ridge in a howling blizzard at 5 in the morning must be hard to
equal. Such an occasion always discovers Wangdi at his best. He seems
everywhere at once, lion-like in strength and active like a cheetah. His grim
little face becomes even grimmer. There is a job to be done, an unpleasant
job; no use fiddling with it, get it done and quickly. So it came about that
within a very short time the frozen, wildly napping tents were smothered and
subdued, and sleep-ing-bags, cooking utensils and food rammed into
ruck-sacks.

It was impossible to see more than a yard or two in the blizzard; our
upward track had vanished beneath six inches of snow, and it was more by
luck than judgment that we steered a course which avoided awkward
crevasses. Visibility improved as we descended, so abandoning our upward
route in favour of the sus-pected corridor which we now knew to be
perfectly safe we slid pell-mell down easy slopes to the snow-field.

Henceforward the descent was uneventful, except that Pasang slipped
twice on the snow-slope above the lower camping place. The second time
this happened I was nearing a boulder projecting through the snow, so
jumped forward to get the rope round it, in doing which I caught my shin
violently against a projecting flake of rock. This inspired me to such a flight
of oratory that the unfortunate Pasang moved with unexampled care for the
remainder of the descent.

We breakfasted in rain at the lower camp; higher, however, it was still
snowing hard, and I wondered whether the storm heralded the monsoon.

With most of the day before us, we descended leisurely, and I took the
opportunity to collect further plants. When we left the snow-covered glacier
in favour of the moraine, and came a little later to flower-covered slopes it
was brought home to me how supremely delightful mountaineering in
Garhwal can be. On Everest, a climber may be for weeks above the plant-
level, and he longs for a sight of grass and trees until even the Rongbuk
Valley with its dwarfed herbage and wilder-ness of stones becomes
desirable. Climbing in Garhwal is altogether different. There the climber is
never far from green valleys, indeed little or no farther than he is when
climbing in the High Alps. Thus he is able to spend the morning on the
snows and the afternoon amid the flowers. In such contrast lies the spiritual
essence of mountaineering. The fierce tussle with ice-slope and precipice
and complete relaxation of taut muscles on a flower-clad pasture; the keen,
biting air of the heights and the soft, scented air of the valleys. Everest,
Kangchenjunga and Nanga Parbat are “duties,” but mountaineering in
Garhwal is a pleasure — thank God.

Ere we reached the uppermost shepherds’ hut, the scowling cloud roof
broke up, and the sun poured into the valley, lighting the rain-soaked
pastures, so that every flower and blade of grass shone with a marvellous
purity.

So unsuccessfully, but delightfully, we returned to the base camp.

CHAPTER VIII
ON DOING NOTHING

THE day following our unsuccessful attempts to climb Rataban was
brilliantly fine. I did nothing, not be-cause I was tired, but because I was
lazy. By nature I am a lazy person, but, unhappily, I seldom have the
opportunity of being lazy, in which I do not differ from any other father of a
family who has to earn his living. And now there were heaven-sent
opportunities. Why had I sweated up to the col on Rataban, when I might
have been lazy? I could see its serene and shining curve against the deep
blue sky, distant and remote above the silver birches. In that answer lay the
answer to “Why do you climb?” Mountaineering madness no doubt, but
assuming that this madness (call it sublimation of sex or atavism or anything
you like) is impossible to eradicate, how is mountaineering to be enjoyed
best?

Amid a welter of conflicting philosophies, I have always clung to one
idea — that to get a kick out of life, a man must sample the contrasts of life.

And so it is with mountaineering. The positive ceases to exist when there is
no negative. Activity can only be measured against inactivity; therefore, to
appreciate the joys of activity it is necessary to practise passivity. Hence the
off-day. Now an off-day is not something to be indulged in grudgingly; it is
a necessary and integral part of mountaineering, the essential complement of
the “on-day.” I can sympathise with the man who with only a short holiday
scales all the peaks he can in the time; yet, if he neglects inactivity, he
neglects contemplation and we cannot appreciate Nature otherwise.

There are many who climb and enjoy climbing for exercise, fresh air,
good health and relaxation from a sedentary life, yet Nature is discernible in
part only through the medium of physical exercise. A superman may be able
to divorce his spiritual consciousness from his physical make-up at all times,
but there are few supermen, and most of us must strive physically and
mentally to discern the verities of creation.

The West assumes its superiority over the East primarily because it is
further advanced in mechanical matters, but woe betide it should it continue
to associate mechanisms with spiritual progress. In Garhwal I met a true
civilisation, for I found contentment and happi-ness. I saw a life that is not
enslaved by the time-factor that is not obsessed by the idea that happiness is
depen-dent on money and materials. I had never before realised until I
camped in the Valley of Flowers how much happiness there is in simple
living and simple things.

By standards of the West I led a life of discomfort, and I frankly admit
that I should not be content to lead such a life in England, for it is necessary
to conform to the standards of one’s environment. A large majority of people
do not realise how necessary it is to conform to these standards and for this
reason look aghast on the “discomforts” endured by explorers. Genuine
discomforts of fatigue, heat and cold are common enough in mountaineering
and exploration, but the largest part of so-called “discomfort” is not
discomfort at all except when measured against a different standard and a
different environment.

To my mind, the acme of mental and spiritual discomfort would be to live
in some super-luxury hotel in the Valley of Flowers. Happiness is best
achieved by adapting ourselves to the standards of our environ-ment. For
this reason, I suspect that cranks and extremists are essentially unhappy
persons and sympto-matic of a life that has become socially and
mechanically too complex for its environment. In Garhwal I found no red,
green or black shirts, no flags or emblems, no mechanisms, no motor-cars or
aeroplanes, but I did find a happy and contented people. I think the attitude

of Himalayan peoples to western progress is best summed up in the words of
a Tibetan, and Tibetans consider themselves superior to Europeans in
spiritual culture. He said: “We do not want your civilisation in Tibet, for
wherever it is established it brings unhappiness and war.” It is a terrible
indictment and it is true.

During the morning I lounged about the camp. It was a morning like other
mornings, quiet and seeming scarcely to breathe. Dew lay thick on the
flowers; birds sang in the forest and the air was sweet and charged with
pleasant smells.

I reclined on a bank below the camp. Presently a gentle breeze began to
blow, touching the flowers with light fingers. Smaller flowers such as the
blue corydalis quivered a little but the taller flowers, the white anemones
and golden nomockaris, nodded in slow undulations, as though conscious of
their grace and dignity.

During the afternoon clouds gathered; building up slowly, column by
column and mass by mass. There was a wild sunset with fingers of lurid
light but, as usual, evening established equilibrium in the atmosphere, and
the stars shone out in their thousands as night spread from behind the ashen
snows of Rataban.

We were very content. I knew the men were con- tent because they used
often to sing their simple Tibetan melodies. This is one, a great favourite
with Wangdi when he was climbing a hillside, as well as I can remember it.

In immeasurable contentment I sat by the fire.

CHAPTER IX
THE SNOW-PEAK

DURING our attempt to climb Rataban, 1 had been much impressed by the
beautifully proportioned snow-peak to the south of the Bhyundar Valley, and

had decided to attempt the ascent. It might prove accessible from the
southernmost branch of the main valley glacier, but this route would involve
at least two camps, and at the moment I had no intention of making lengthy
expeditions. Could it be approached from the Bhyundar Valley? It should be
possible to examine it by climbing some distance up the northern side of the
valley, and such a reconnaissance had the advantage of including botanical
work. So two days after our retreat from Rataban, Nurbu and I crossed the
valley and after mounting grass-slopes scrambled up a steep craggy buttress
on which our hand-holds consisted for the most part of juniper roots.

We did not pause until we were nearly 2,000 feet above the floor of the
valley, when we seated ourselves and I examined the mountain through my
monocular glass. From this direction it appears as a rock-peak rather than a
snow-peak, built up of striated cliffs dipping sharply from south to north.
The snow-ridge we had seen consists of neve resting on the uppermost of
these striations. Between the peak and a minor rock-peak to the north
overlooking the Bhyundar Valley is a wide gully; if this could be entered
from a little valley branching off at right angles from the Bhyundar Valley it
seemed as though the ridge could be approached over one or other of a series
of sloping snow-covered shelves. The lowermost portion of the gully was
concealed behind the shoulder of the minor rock-peak we had already
climbed, but I came to the conclusion that serious difficulty was unlikely.

These points settled, Nurbu and I spent two or three hours scrambling
about for flowers. We were climbing a steep ridge when I came on the first
blue poppy (Meconopsis Qculeata) I had seen in bloom. It was growing
solitary in a rocky sentry-box, its roots and foliage protected from the sun,
yet adequately nourished by a slow seep of water.

Holdsworth described this flower as being the colour of the sky at dawn,
and so, indeed, it is. As I pulled up on to a ledge out of breath after a stiff
scramble, it confronted me not more than a yard away, lighting the dark-
shadowed rocks behind it. Like most poppies, it is open and wide, droops
slightly, has a centre of many golden stamens, and is so fragile that its petals
are detached merely by brushing against them. It protects itself with sharp
spines arranged on the stem and buds, which penetrate the skin like so many
minute spears.

We were crossing a gully, when my companion pointed upwards, and I
saw not more than 400 feet higher, on a snow-bed in the gully, a herd of
about a dozen barhal. For a few moments they did not see us, then the
leader, a grand old beast with a splendid head, gave a shrill whistle, and

away they went, helter-skelter over the snow and in an incredibly fast rush
across the steep wall of the gully.

When they penetrated the Nanda Devi basin, Messrs. Shipton and Tilman
found herds of comparatively tame barhal. It is possible that the absence of
bears as well as of humans accounted for this. In the Bhyundar Valley there
are bears and the barhal are very wary; this is the only explanation I can give
for their timidity in a district which, as far as I know, has never been visited
by sportsmen. In Tibet I have seen almost tame barhal, and during the 1933
Mount Everest Expedition they grazed near the base camp. No bears have
been observed in the Rongbuk Valley and the Tibetans take no wild life.
Tameness and timidity, in wild life is a study of considerable interest. Where
small beasts are hunted or preyed upon by larger or fiercer beasts, they must
of necessity become timid and wary, but in districts where no hunting occurs
and there are no ferocious beasts, it is reasonable to suppose that creatures
should be less timid.

June 26th dawned with an evil sky. Far above the highest peaks lay a roof
of slate-coloured cloud and in the valley livid mists had already congregated.
I was doubtful whether it was worth while setting off to climb the snow-
peak, particularly as a drizzle of rain was falling, but the men settled matters
by pulling down my tent and packing it up. As I had sent Pasang down to
Joshimath for my mail I took with me only Wangdi and Nurbu, which meant
that I had to travel with light equipment.

Descending into the valley we walked along the south bank of the stream
and, after forcing our way through some dense vegetation, entered the side
valley already mentioned. The weather improved visibly as we ascended this
and we were trudging up the terminal moraine of the small glacier which
fills most of it, when the mists parted and the snowy summit of our peak
stood out full in the sun. As quickly as possible I climbed the moraine,
arriving on top as the last mists were vanishing. Now I could see what I had
not seen before, that the base of the gully could be approached without
difficulty over a level and uncrevassed glacier.

I had already noted a possible camping site on a ridge between the gully-
and another gully to the south of it, which formed a channel for ice
avalanches from a conspicuous hanging glacier far up on the face of the
mountain. As the main gully was exposed to falling stones we mounted for
some distance by the side of it, then crossed it quickly where it was
comparatively narrow. Although the crossing only took a minute or two, we
did not care for it, as now and then stones came skidding down the hard
snow.

Our camping site was by a large overhanging boulder, perched on the
crest of the ridge, which formed an excellent kitchen. It had cracked above
and appeared insecurely poised, but Wangdi laughed away my faint protests
and proceeded to pitch the porters’ tent under the overhang, after levelling a
platform for my tent immediately above the boulder.

The cooking fuel was dwarf rhododendron collected on the way up. It was
necessary first of all to construct a little trench of stones; in this an empty
cigarette box and sundry pieces of dried grass were placed to provide the
nucleus of the conflagration. Pieces of dwarf rhododendron were then
arranged on top, after which Wangdi and Nurbu lay flat on their stomachs at
either end of the trench and, taking it in turns, blew energetic-ally at the
smouldering wood. It was an exhausting process and soon their eyes were
streaming from the acrid smoke which issued in suffocating clouds from the
“kitchen,” but they were undaunted and an hour later with a grin of triumph
Wangdi brought me a cup of tea. It was well-nigh undrinkable, but so much
hard work had gone to the making of it that I could not in decency refuse it
or even surreptitiously throw it away, so summoning up all the fortitude of
which I was capable I gulped down what was virtually liquid rhododendron
smoke.

A hundred feet above the camp was a steep crag forming a projecting
buttress, which would deflect down the gully to the south of us any ice
avalanches falling from the hanging glacier. I had already seen Primula
nivalis on the way up, so to work off the baleful effects of the tea, which
promised to be both peculiar and distressing, I climbed up, ostensibly to look
for flowers. I had not gone far when I saw; spreading from a thin crack
above me, a little clump of densely clustered light blue flowers, still shining
with the morning rain. I had an awkward climb, as the rocks were nearly
vertical at this point, but when at length I succeeded in reaching the plant I
recognised it as a paraquilegia (P. grandiflora) which I had seen once
before during the 1936 Mount Everest Expedition. It would be difficult to
find a more genuine rock plant than this, or a more delightful contrast to the
stern crags. One blast of cold wind should suffice to wither and shrivel it, a
single frost to bum its tender foliage, yet it grows; a miracle of growth,
battered by storm, scorched by sun, the prey of hail, storm and blizzard.
Heaven knows how it grows, and that I think is the correct answer.

The weather, having cleared up to a point, remained undecided until
sunset, when there was a further turn for the better, and in the west, Nilkanta
appeared, cutting sharply through long thin lines of mist. Ours was an
impressive situation. On the one hand was the wide gully by which we must

commence the ascent on the morrow, with an icy channel down the middle,
cut by falling stones ; on the other hand, the ice-swept gully ending beneath
a precipice, crowned by a great mass of shattered ice, fully 300 feet thick.
No one fell, but there were numerous rock-falls, among them a block
weighing at least a ton, which tore down the gully, hit a projecting crag, and
flew far out into the air, disappearing from sight with a deep droning hum.

Just before dark, our boulder gave two or three such ominous creaks that
Wangdi and Nurbu thought better of camping immediately beneath it, and
hastily exca-vated a platform to one side. For supper I had the cold remains
of Montmorency, a couple of potatoes, biscuits, jam, and a cup of
“Ovaltine.” This last-named beverage, which in happier circumstances
makes an excellent night-cap, had been ruined by the all-pervading smoke of
dwarf rhododendron. I threw it away, when the men were not looking, but
did not fail to compliment Wangdi; poor man, it had cost him and Nurbu
fully an hour’s energetic blowing to produce it.

The night was calm and warm, too warm for the height, which cannot
have been less than 14,500 feet. We breakfasted at the late hour of 5.30
instead of 4.30 as planned, everyone having over-slept. The tea was
undrinkable and the porridge barely edible. However, this had the effect of
hastening us on our way, and we were off at six o’clock.

The snow, although only slightly frozen, was hard and step-cutting or
kicking was necessary all the way. To avoid falling stones we kept to the
edge of the gully, and there was only one place, where we had to turn a
projecting comer of rock, that was in the least dangerous. It was a calm
morning, but there was a certain amount of cloud about, whilst the southern
sky was heavy with dense masses of cumulus, backed by tall anvils of false
cirrus; in all probability the monsoon was already drenching the plains and
foothills.

Having passed a precipitous belt of rock above the camp, we abandoned
the gully in favour of a snow-shelf, which slanted steeply towards the upper
valley. In gaining this shelf we came upon a glorious display of Primula
nivalis, growing in thousands on ledges watered by the melting snows. There
can be little or no earth in such a situation and there is no doubt that this is
the hardiest of all primulas, rejoicing as it does in barren rocks, mnning
water, and coarse grit.

Without pause we climbed up and along the shelf, presently passing above
the hanging glacier. I was now reaching my best mountaineering form, and it
was no longer a fatigue but a-joy to climb. This stage is reached when

muscles are entirely under control, and rhythm, without which it is
impossible to enjoy mountaineering, has been acquired. Wangdi was also fit,
else he could not have sung without pause a monotonous little ditty, which
lasted him only two or three steps before it had to be repeated.

Presently the slope steepened into an ice-bulge, to avoid which we
mounted close to the rock-wall bounding the uppermost edge of the shelf.
Above the bulge we saw that in order to gain the snow-slopes leading to the
upper nive, we must either work through an ice-fall, up slopes which would
almost certainly become dangerous later in the day, or climb the rock-wall
immediately above us to the crest of a ridge. I decided upon the latter course
as the wall was breached at one place by a gully of no particular difficulty.
At its base the gully was defended by a bergschrund (marginal crevasse), but
this was well bridged with avalanche debris and we crossed without
difficulty to the snow-slope above. The snow was in good order, and we
mounted quickly to where the gully ended under some rocks. These proved
loose but not difficult, and within a few minutes we had climbed them and
were seated in the sun on the ridge.

We had been going hard and it was time for a rest and a meal. From our
position we looked along an easy, almost horizontal ridge, ending in the
glacier-clad face of the mountain, which we must scale before gaining the
upper snow-crest. It was a straightforward climb, except at the point where
the ridge abutted against the face. Here a wall of ice about fifty feet high
would have to be surmounted in order to gain the easy-looking slopes
running up to the summit ridge.

Twenty minutes later we set off again and scrambled along the broken
rocks of the ridge where I had to tell Wangdi, who was at the end of the
rope, that he must not attempt fancy routes of his own. He was an
independent fellow and always imagined that he knew best; occasionally he
did, but generally he did not, and he would waste valuable time in climbing
up a bit of rock by a different route simply because it was a different route.

The ice-wall was not as formidable as it looked, but it presented a pretty
problem in step-cutting up a broken comer. I enjoy ice-work and solving this
alone made the climb worth while. Furthermore, it was a sensational place,
as the corner overhung a sheer drop of two or three hundred feet where the
glacier broke away to the left. To a lover of ice-craft there is some-thing
peculiarly satisfying in the hard clean thump of an ice-axe pick meeting ice,
and step-cutting brings the same sort of satisfaction that a sculptor
experiences when working with his chisel. Cutting steps is not a matter of
bmte force but an art to be performed with the minimum expenditure of

effort and the maxi-mum of enjoyment. A good ice-axe is not merely a shaft
of wood with a steel head at the end of it, but something that lives, and is for
the time being an essential part of the mountaineer. The feel of it, and the
balance of it, contribute in some subtle way to enjoyment: to get the best out
of it, you must treat it gently, deliberately and rhythmically, not blindly and
forcefully. To the layman this may seem unnecessarily lyrical and even
ridiculous. What is there, he asks, in cutting a step in ice? If you would
answer this, watch one of the Oberland guides at work. “Easy,” you say —
then try it for yourself. There is Sonja Henie’s skating — easy, but . . .

Presently we were on the slope above. At first we had to steer a devious
course between crevasses, but once these were passed the slope stretched
unbroken before us to the summit ridge. The climbing now was the
antithesis of the work on the ice-wall; dull, slogging work, of no interest
whatsoever. Light mists had formed and the sun shone through them with a
hot suffocating power that sapped our energy. I was not altogether happy
about the snow, for that fallen dur-ing the recent bad weather had not
consolidated per-fectly as yet, and the general formation of the slope made it
an avalanche trap ; so at intervals I kicked and prodded it with my axe in
order to determine its consistency. The surface layer of new snow was about
eight inches thick; beneath this was a breakable crust, and beneath that
granular snow. It was in the surface layer that danger lay, if any. At present
it was adhering firmly to the old crust beneath, but later, when the sun grew
hotter, it might slide. It was essential, therefore, to reach the summit and
return as quickly as possible.

Our pace was very slow on the last part of the slope, for the sun was well-
nigh intolerable and the snow very soft, and it was with considerable relief
that we reached the ridge leading towards the summit. The summit was not
far distant, or so we thought, and was separated from us by a sharp snow-
edge. After the slogging work of the snow-slope, this edge was delightful to
tread. With renewed energy we pressed on, and some twenty minutes later
trod the point we had seen. It was not the summit; beyond, stretched the
ridge, at first almost horizontally, then steeply, disappearing into the mist. I
heard a groan of disappointment from Nurbu. I could echo his protest, as we
had climbed fully 4,000 feet in three and a half hours and I was now very
tired. It was a pity to be so tired; otherwise we might better have enjoyed
this splendid ridge. When I had first seen it from our camp under the
Bhyundar Pass it had looked magnificent, and it was magnificent, the beau
ideal of snow-ridges, not too soft and not too hard, with ah edge moulded by
wind and storm into a perfect blade.

We had not advanced far when a strong cold wind forced us to halt to put
on our spare clothing and Balaclava helmets. This wind had only one thing
to be said in its favour: it would prevent the lower snow-slopes from
becoming dangerous; for the rest it was bitterly cold, and though it had little
effect on the grim-visaged Wangdi, it was fast knocking the stuffing out of
Nurbu.

The ridge seemed interminable, for mist always adds to the apparent
length of a ridge. I had assumed that it stretched unbroken to the summit, but
such was not the case. There was a break in it, a curious rift where the
lowermost part had separated from the uppermost and sunk, leaving an
almost vertical wall about twenty feet high. No doubt the mist and our
fatigue magnified this wall out of proportion to its true size; at all events, the
sight of it was too much for Nurbu. “Tik nay, Sahib ! Tik nay !” (“ No good,
Sir ! No good!”) he ejaculated. But strangely enough this unexpected
difficulty had the opposite effect on Wangdi and myself; it stimulated our
flagging energy. I shouted at Nurbu through the rush of the wind, a
villainous mixture of English and Urdu — we were not going to lose the peak
now. At the same moment I saw through the ice-rimmed oval of Wangdi’s
Balaclava a sudden grin; the next moment, like the mountaineer he is, he had
driven in his axe, and given the rope a turn round it, prepared for my
advance.

The wall was composed of hard ice not pure ice, and a few slashes with
the adze end of the ice-axe were sufficient for the step. In a few minutes we
were up. The summit could not be far off. Of a sudden the mists swirled
asunder. Ahead of us, the snow-ridge swept up in a perfect curve, to end in a
perfect point, sunlit and infinitely beautiful, against a pool of blue sky.

Ten minutes later, at 10.50, we were there. Strangely enough the air was
calm although the wind was tear-ing across the crest a few feet below: not an
unusual phenomenon on mountains. My principal memory is of my feet,
which were very cold. On the lower slopes my boots had leaked in the wet
snow and the cold wind on the summit ridge had completed my
discom-fiture. Thus, much of my time on the summit was spent in waggling
my toes about in my wet half-frozen socks in an attempt to restore
circulation. Apart from this, I mustered up sufficient energy to take a
photo-graph, or rather to set the delay-action release in the shutter so that all
three of us could be included, as a memento of the occasion. This, when
printed, showed Wangdi posed in the manner of some Grecian athlete about
to do his stuff, looking his very toughest and grimmest, with a long, bamboo
cigarette-holder pro-jecting defiantly from his lips. Nurbu, also, had so far

forgotten his tiredness as to smoke a cigarette, whilst I am chiefly
remarkable for my head-gear which consisted of a Balaclava helmet to
protect my ears and face from the cold wind, and on top of that a double
Terai felt hat put on during our stay on the summit to protect my head from
the sun. Such are the peculiar con-ditions at high altitudes.

The peak we had climbed must be about 19,500 feet. As our camp was
between 14,500 and 15,000 feet, we had climbed between 4,500 and 5,000
feet. The climb had taken, including halts, four hours and fifty minutes,
which must be accounted fast going at this height.

With the possibility, ever present in my mind, of the lower snow-slopes
becoming dangerous, I gave the order to descend after a stay of ten minutes.
Even at great altitudes in the Himalayas, it is possible to descend at an
Alpine speed and within half an hour we were off the show-ridge. The
slopes below had not changed appreciably, and were still safe, and we raced
down them to the ice-wall. Here an unpleasant incident occurred. Wangdi
was first down, then came Nurbu, and lastly myself. I was reasonably well
placed to check a slip, but when Nurbu decided to jump down the last six or
eight feet without saying anything to me as to his intention, he nearly pulled
me after him. I should be very surprised if he ever did such a thing again, for
what I had to say about it at the time must have impressed itself indelibly on
his memory. We regained the camp at one o’clock, having descended in two
hours, and after drinking some dwarf rhododendron tea, set off an hour later
to the base camp.

As we passed along the river-bed we came on a bird’s nest in a hollow
between two stones, containing four eggs of a greyish-blue colour. It was a
foolish place for a nest, as it was only an inch or two above the stream level
and would certainly be inundated when the monsoon broke. And there was
every sign that the monsoon was about to break, for the sky was dark with
impending storm and heavy drops of warm rain began to fall shortly before
we reached the base camp.

At 6 p.m. it rained heavily, and soon after nightfall there was a fall little
short of a cloud-burst. As I lay in my sleeping-bag, writing up my diary by
the light of a candle, lightning began to flicker, and above the bombardment
of the rain on the tent I heard the thunder growling on the peaks. The sound
of the torrent rose to a roar, and I thought of the bird’s nest; by now it must
have been destroyed. Finally I slept, drummed into oblivion by torrential
rain.

CHAPTER X

THE SECOND BASE CAMP

THE monsoon had broken. It was still raining when I awoke on the
morning of June 28th. Yet breakfast appeared as usual. With that aptitude
for overcoming apparently insuperable difficulties, Wangdi and Co. had
rigged a rough canopy of sacking over the hollow forming the kitchen; some
wood, kept dry in their tent overnight, had done the rest. Further to assist
them, I gave them the jaconet outer cover of my sleeping-bag, and this,
when cut up and spread out, made an excellent waterproof canopy some six
feet square beneath which and the other pieces of sacking, culinary
operations were carried out.

I had decided, before climbing the snow-peak, to shift my base camp to
the floor of the valley. There were two reasons for this: firstly, it would be
central for botanical work and, secondly, the snow-bridge beneath the camp
was rapidly disintegrating. True, there was another snow-bridge near the
new camping site, which would last a fortnight at least, but on the whole the
north side of the stream was more convenient.

At ten o’clock the rain stopped and a watery sun appeared. I decided,
however, to postpone moving the camp until the morrow in order to search
the neigh-bouring woods for plants. This work was delayed by the arrival of
Pasang with the mail, and a local coolie carrying a maund (80 lbs.) of coolie
food. Among the mail was The Times Special Coronation Supplement. The
men were vastly intrigued with the pictures.

“That, I suppose is your Potala?’ said Wangdi, pointing to a drawing of
Westminster Abbey. “And that is the King and the Grand Lama about to
crown him?”

I agreed that the” Archbishop of Canterbury was in fact our Grand Lama.

Wangdi had already spoken to me about the abdication of Edward VIII. In
spite of my very limited knowledge of Urdu, I could follow him when he
said that if a King was indeed king, how is it that he cannot marry the
woman of his choice? Either he does his work well or badly. And whom he
marries is his own affair and his own choice. And what has woman to do
with kingship? I think this may be said to sum up the feeling of the Indian
peoples towards the abdication.

Later in the morning the men spotted a black bear on an alp across the
valley. At first, in spite of Wangdi’s pointing finger, I could not see it, and
when I did I needed my monocular glass to confirm that a tiny black spot
was indeed a bear. These Tibetans have eyes like hawks.

It was only twelve days since I had arrived in the Bhyundar Valley, but
time and the warm breath of the monsoon had wrought marvels to the flora.
All around my tent were the nodding bells of Fritillaria Roylei and hosts of
a white-flowered onion (Allium humile), whilst on a rocky slope above the
camp was a huge megaearp&a (M. polyandra) with stately spires of yellow
flowers that exuded a sweet musky smell. In the woods were many white
kerminiums and I found another primula with a mealy purple flower which
seemed to like the shade in a cool mossy place under rocks. Then there was
a clematis (C. grata) not yet in flower, rambling over the bush
rhododendrons, and on a bank near the tents a small shrub with charming
bell-like, pink-white flowers, which I learned later was a gaultheria, and
another shrub with long spikes of bloom which I could not for the life of me
identify, not even its family. Indeed, my ignorance was pitiable. I was like a
Cockney in a museum of precious things, only too eager and willing to
acquire knowledge, but so confused and dazzled by the splendours about
him as not to know how and where to start his quest. My sheet anchor was
Dr. Ethelbert Blatter’ s book, “Beautiful Flowers of Kashmir.” It had been
given to me by that great gardener, Mr. G. P. Baker, and was invaluable in
helping me to identify specimens, but even so there were many occa-sions
when I was not even able to relegate a flower to its family. However, when
the worst came to the worst I could always collect a specimen for my press
and leave it to be named by the experts.

The afternoon I spent wandering about the woods, where I found various
ferns, including such homely species as the maidenhair and oak ferns. There
is something blithesome and gay about a birch forest; it is not jealous of the
sun or dank with rotting vegetation. I well remember a little glade in which I
spent some time reclining on a bank with my back to a moss-clad boulder. It
Was an absolutely still afternoon, for the warm breath of the monsoon
seemed to have stifled the usual breeze. Above the tree-tops the peaks
showed, dusted with freshly fallen snow between woolly masses of cloud,
and from all around came bird-song. Close at hand the notes of individual
birds were discernible, and I heard from the alp the grating trill of the “Zee-
dersee bird,” but the songs of more distant birds were indistinguishable from
a chorus that resembled music played very softly in a vast cathedral.

When I came out of the forest I saw the lower slopes of the shelf dotted
black and white. The sheep and goats, which I had been expecting for the
past few days, had arrived. I did not welcome them, for they would eat the
flowers, but I comforted myself with the reflection that there was plenty of

room in the Bhyundar Valley and that they could do- comparatively little
damage.

Two of the shepherds called on us that evening and were entertained by
the Tibetans. They were dressed in some dingy woollen material, with a
plaid of sack-cloth over their shoulders. Their features were of a Semitic cast
with well-formed aquiline noses and, like most Garhwalis, they had allowed
their hair to grow long and had bobbed it in a becoming manner.

Rain fell during the night, and did not stop until after breakfast the next
morning, when we packed up and moved the camp to the new site, a level
meadow immediately above the stream, which had carved for itself a deep
channel at this point. A short distance from the camp a huge avalanche,
composed partly of ice, had fallen from the wall of peaks to the north of the
valley, and after pouring through a gully in the gently sloping floor of the
valley, had spread itself across the stream to a depth of fully fifty feet. It had
shrunk considerably during the past few weeks, for it had originally
extended 300 yards down the stream, after being bent at right- angles from its
original direction. This avalanche must have weighed many tens of
thousands of tons, and the wind of it had snapped off short a number of
birches along the edge of the meadow.

There was an abundance of birch and juniper for fuel, whilst a few paces
from the camp a stream of crystal-clear water meandered down a gentle
slope, then splashed over some rocks into a little flower- filled valley.

It was a beautiful camping place and from a floral point of view more
interesting than the original base camp. The tents were pitched in the midst
of flowers, prominent among which was the Anemone polyanthes. In
between grew thousands of yellow Nomocharis oxypetala and here and there
the blue Nomocharis nana. There were two kinds of geraniums and a blue
delphinium (D. brunnianum). One of the loveliest of the taller plants was the
Polemonium caeruleum, with wide, flattish flowers of amethyst blue. The
fritillaries were short-lived and in their place potentillas were springing up in
their millions. It was remarkable how one plant replaced another as the
summer wore on. When the fritillaries were in bloom it seemed impossible
that anything else could grow, so closely packed were they, yet here were
potentillas equally closely packed. Only an uninterrupted cycle of growth
can maintain such perfect balance. Would it were possible to perfect this
cycle in our gardens. It is not possible in a cultivated garden where the
balance is artificially maintained by constant weeding and thinning, but it
may be possible in a wild garden provided that the cycle of growth and
relationship of plants one to the other are made a scientific study. I believe

that Rudolph Steiner has approached nearer to the problem than anyone. He
has devoted his life to the study of rhythm in nature, and it is only through
rhythm that harmony and beauty are achieved in the garden of flowers or in
the garden of the human mind.

I spent the afternoon pottering about the camp. The little valley and a
knoll close by the camp were rich in plants, though it would be a fortnight or
more before many of them bloomed. Close to the stream was a drift of blue
cynoglossum and on the slope above the tall spires of a stately pink-
flowered, thistle-like plant, subsequently identified as Marina longifolia. At
the head of the little valley, to one side of the tumbling stream, was a
overhanging rock and under it glowed a single blue poppy, whilst on the
steep bank above the river were many shrubs, including a pink rose and a
bush rhododendron not more than five feet high which edged the meadow
with crimson flowers. Scarcely less colour-ful was a mass of Androsace
primuloides, falling over a large boulder perched near the edge of a dry and
sunny bank, where various rock plants grew, including a yellow-flowered
saxifrage (S. flagellari), which sends out long questing tendrils in all
directions, and a little yellow potentilla (P. eriocarpa).

That evening the men collected an abundance of firewood, which Nurbu
arranged with loving care; he is a connoisseur of camp fires. Before the
monsoon I had need of an eiderdown jacket in the evening, but now it was
unnecessary, for the air was warm and mild like an English July. I sat in my
rickety camp chair, which had been artfully and ingeniously repaired by
Wangdi to prevent it falling to pieces, and read Shake-speare’s sonnets.
What would he have written had he been there that evening? What message
would he have carried from the flower full meadows and dim forests. What
language would he have garnered from the paling snows?

When night fell I continued to sit without reading and the pale faces of the
anemones looked at me without moving, out of the darkness.

Rain fell in the night, but next morning was fine. I was off at eight, taking
with me Nurbu, who usually accompanied me on my botanical expeditions,
and who had become expert at pressing flowers and rigging the camera;
furthermore, he took a genuine interest in the proceedings and often pointed
out a flower which he thought might interest me.

The lush vegetation was wet and soon we were soaked to the hips. On the
floor of the valley I saw nothing I had not seen before, except a ranunculus,
but it was a different tale on a buttress. We had mounted perhaps 500 feet
without seeing anything of special interest, when we came on a beautiful

rose-coloured cypripedium, which could be none other than the Cypripedium
himalaicum mentioned by Holdsworth. This little flower fully earns its
popular title of lady’s slipper, but it would be a very small lady who could fit
it to her foot. It is not more than six inches high, but there were so many that
the slope was imbued with a rosy glow. Nearby I saw a white flower with a
golden centre at the end of a single stem. I identified it as a lloydia (L.
serotina), also found by Holdsworth. This was an advance guard of millions
which later covered the ground at the base camp. The red potentillas were
now at their best, huge flowers the size of half-crowns, and in between them
was a purple orchis, which almost always grew in association with thistles.
Higher up we had a stiff scramble on some rocks where a neat little draba
ornamented the crevices and ledges, whilst a creeping knot weed was
spreading over a weathered slab. Only a few sprays of this (Polyganum
vaccimifolium) were in bloom, but I saw it later in many places, and came to
the conclusion that it is one of the most beautiful of Himalayan flowers.
When fully in bloom it cascades over the rocks in a rose-coloured flood and
is visible from afar.

We ate our lunch on a juniper-clad ledge. Fifteen hundred feet beneath
was the camp, a cluster of minute tents and beyond it the ragged shining line
of the stream. It was a typical monsoon day; damp clouds were clinging to
the peaks, or suspended in a sky of watery blue, their shadows almost
stationary on the green valley floor; slate-coloured nimbus was gathering in
the south and, as we ate, a dense mist oozed through the gorge into the upper
part of the valley and con-gregated on the hillsides above and below.

We retired, but not in time to escape the rain, which fell with drenching
force. It persisted until 8.30 p.m., when the stars shone out through an
atmosphere sweet with wet turf and flowers, but this was only a temporary
fine spell and rain set in again later and fell without pause until the late
afternoon of the following day.

There was nothing for me to do but He in my sleeping-bag, write up my
botanical notes, read and in between whiles eat chocolate. This chocolate
was remarkable; inasmuch as the makers presented with each packet half a
dozen pictures of film stars. Presumably this was intended to increase sales,
but unhappily the Indian hot weather had caused the chocolate to sweat, and
beauties such as Greta Garbo, Bette Davis, Charles Laughton and A1 Jolson
presented a sadly debauched appearance.

Among the papers I had received by mail were copies of the Spectator
and The Times. The news of the day was, as usual, depressing, but I got a
certain amount of kick out of literary reviews, especially as regards one book

which The Times praised highly, and the Spectator damned to perdition.
Such contentiousness seemed to me symbolical of the distant combative
world. Another paper, an illustrated weekly, told me with a wealth of detail
and many diagrammatic drawings how to make my house gas-proof, but it
said nothing about tents. It all seemed utterly fantastic viewed from the
Valley of Flowers. It was as though I were looking down on an ant-heap that
had gone completely crazy. That men and women should have to know how
they can make their houses gas-proof before they can live at peace and
charity with their neighbours is something so fantastic that the perpetrators
of the joke should be locked up in an asylum. I tried to explain the idea to
Wangdi, but he looked at me so strangely that I desisted.

CHAPTER XI
THE BELVEDERE

THE morning of July and was overcast and grey, but I decided, more for
the sake of exercise than anything else, to take a camp up towards the
Khanta Khal Pass. From this pass, over which a route lies to the village of
Hanuman Chatti in the Alaknanda Valley, a gentle sloping valley extends
some distance before falling sharply into the Bhyundar Valley. There is
excellent grazing for sheep and goats and a well-defined track zigzags up a
steep lower pitch in the valley by the side of a waterfall. I remembered the
valley well, as Holdsworth had found many flowers there in 1931.

There was little of floral interest to begin with except that the edges of the
birch forest were blue with cynoglossum, but higher up, where the path
emerged into the open upper part of the valley, the slopes were brilliant with
flowers and I found a geum (G, elation), and the first campanula (C.
cashmiriana) I had seen, a small flower like the English harebell. Then there
was a collection of large boulders where I came upon a fine display of blue
poppies; each boulder affording shelter for one and, in rare cases, two plants.
Even on that dull morning they seemed to shine as though capable of
retaining the sunlight and blue skies of two days ago. At the back of my
mind was the possibility of attempting a peak of about 20,000 feet, to the
north of the Khanta Khal Pass, but new snow had fallen during the recent
bad weather and now I realised that an attempt would have to be postponed
until conditions improved. The alternative was to camp on a ridge to the
south of the valley, and on the morrow attempt the ascent of a rock peak of
about 17,000 feet, which overlooks the gorge of the Bhyundar Valley. So we
crossed the stream by a convenient snowdrift, and mounted slopes still

bright with the blooms of a cream- white rhododendron, but had not got very
far when rain fell heavily. The ridge for which we were making ends in a
birch-and rhododendron-clad knoll, over-looking the Bhyundar Valley. It
was a perfect belvedere, and I decided to camp on it. There was snow close
at hand and the men, miracle workers where fires are concerned, somehow
contrived to light the wet dwarf rhododendron wood under a convenient
over-hanging boulder.

At tea-time we were able to get a larger fire going and dry our clothes, but
the weather relapsed again later, and at six o’clock torrential rain fell and
continued until after dark, when a perfect cloud-burst descended. Never in
my life have I camped in such rain, and I lay in my sleeping-bag wondering
whether the tent would be flattened beneath an apparently solid waterfall. To
sleep was impossible, but shortly before midnight the rain ceased, leaving a
calm atmosphere in which the roar of swollen torrents sounded a deep
chorus, broken by a peculiar rushing and tearing sound, coming from a high
waterfall on one of the rock peaks to the northern side of the valley.

No rain was falling when we awoke next morning, but the sky was packed
with moisture-laden mist. The men had had an uncomfortable night. They
are usually adepts in the art of selecting a tent site, but on this occasion had
chosen a hollow for their tent, and had been flooded. It was some time
before they could get a fire going, and breakfast was a scratch affair. In such
weather a long or difficult climb was out of the question, and I decided to
ascend the ridge from the camp in search of flowers and turn back if and
when difficulties were encountered. We were away before seven, and
scrambled up the ridge through dwarf rhododendrons and over big boulders.
To judge from the amount of moss, this portion of the Bhyundar Valley
receives more rain than the upper portion. Doubtless its proximity to the
Alaknanda Valley has something to do with this. At all events, there was a
marked difference in the vegetation as compared with that of the upper end
of the valley. Soon we came on a host of primulas of the dark blue nivalis
section, looking wonderfully fresh and clean after the rain. I found also a
codonopsis (C. ratundifolia) , many bergenias, which like a moist situation
among rocks and, here and there, geums,

Presently, after a scramble up some moss-covered slabs, we reached a
minor summit. Beyond it, the ridge crest consisted of enormous boulders
piled upon one another with formidable drops on either hand. We advanced
cautiously, and a few minutes later reached a slightly higher point. This was
the end of our climb, for further progress was barred by a gap fully 150 feet
deep with vertical or overhanging, slimy, moss-covered walls. In any event

there was little object in con-tinuing farther as once again the weather was
spoiling, and dense mists already enveloped us. On this minor summit I was
interested to notice a round burnt patch of grass. Lightning alone could have
done this; indeed the rocks in the vicinity looked as though they had been
frequently struck. Doubtless it was auto-suggestion, but I had a distinct
feeling of electricity in my hair and beard and as it was not very dark, and
we had no wish to offer ourselves as lightning conductors, we descended to
the camp.

Nothing was to be gained by staying in a particularly damp situation, so
we packed up the sodden tents and descended; and as we descended the
weather, with that perverseness peculiar to mountain weather, suddenly
mended; the sun appeared, spilling brilliant light on the birch forest, and in
less than half an hour the sky was almost unclouded and brilliantly blue.

It was a scene to make a photographer’s mouth water. On high, the peaks
dazzlingly white in freshly-fallen snow; beneath, the emerald green valley,
the green of an Irish landscape in springtime and closer at hand the wet-
leafed birch forest quivering and dancing with reflected light. Flowers are
most beautiful after rain, and I strolled down the hill enchanted, through
drifts of blue cynogtossum and regiments of pink knot weed, pausing every
few minutes to photograph some new and intriguing composition of flower,
forest, hillside and peak.

CHAPTER XII
THE WALL

As already mentioned, the Bhyundar Valley is bounded on the north by a
wall of rock-peaks which rises to a maximum height of about 20,000 feet. I
had often looked at this wall with the idea of ascending one of the peaks on
its crest. The difficulties were obviously formidable, for the wall is steep and
complicated, and consists of rock buttresses, with precipitous little glaciers
perched on shelves in between, except to the east, where it is breached by a
glacier pass of about 16,500 feet which Wangdi told me was sometimes
crossed by shepherds en route to the village of Mana. It was a pretty
mountaineering problem, and as such appealed to me enormously.

The day after our descent to the base camp, Nurbu left for Joshimath to
collect my mail and some more coolie food; the men took turns at this work,
which helped to relieve the monotony for them. Thus I was left with
Wangdi, Pasang and Tewang. The same day I took Pasang with me on a
little expedition up the side of the valley which had as its objects flower-

collect-ing and an examination of possible routes up the wall from the base
camp. The former yielded nothing of especial interest. There seemed at this
period to be a halt in floral growth, the earlier flowers having passed their
best while many of the later flowers were not yet in bloom. During the
ascent of a grassy buttress we disturbed a nestful of young pheasants which
scat-tered in all directions. They could barely fly, but had learned to glide
with considerable skill, though their take-offs and landings were deplorable
and reminded me of my own first solo efforts in the Air Force. Pasang was
unwilling to let them escape so easily, and after a horrible grimace at me,
intended to convey the fact that they were good to eat, he went hurtling
down the steep, unbroken hillside. He aimed a number of stones but not
accurately enough, and with shrill derisive squawks the pheasants
disappeared into the depths of the valley.

As regards the second object, the most likely route appeared to follow
first a grassy ridge, then a series of rock buttresses to a small glacier, whence
it should be possible to mount to the crest of the wall by means of a slanting
ridge and a snow-filled gully.

We commenced the ascent next day. As it was high time Tewang had
some exercise I took him in addition to Wangdi and Pasang. He did not get
very far. We had climbed less than a thousand feet, when I noticed that he
was slipping about in a positively dangerous manner on the wet and slippery
grass. He had no nails in his boots! In a laudable (to him) desire to take back
his climbing boots new and unworn to Darjeeling, where they would
doubtless command a good price, he had substituted a pair of boots so
decrepit that a tramp would have scorned them. I ordered him to descend to
camp at once, put on his climbing boots and return, but when I saw him
painfully and slowly descending the slope, obviously tired and perhaps still
feeling the effects of his poisoned leg, I relented and told him to remain at
the base camp.

We camped at the foot of the first rock buttress to one side of a narrow
gully protected from falling stones by an overhanging rock. On a wall of the
gully was a bird’s nest which Wangdi managed to reach after some
sensational gymnastics, followed by a still more sensa-tional, not to say
dangerous, downward leap into the bed of the gully. He said that it contained
young, but what manner of bird it was I could not tell as I did not see the
mother.

While Wangdi and Pasang were pitching the tents I scrambled up the
gully over a couple of easy pitches on to the sloping crest of the buttress.
This led to the foot of another buttress where the rocks were much steeper.

At first sight it appeared as though a route might lie up the rocks to the east
of this, but when I attempted to climb them I found that they were both,
smooth and steep.

An alternative was straight up the nose of the buttress A and here, entirely
through my own fault, I got into trouble. By dint of an awkward bit of
climbing, I reached a juniper-clad ledge, only to find that further progress
was impossible, or at least desperately difficult. I had no option but to return
and it was during this descent that I encountered an unexpected difficulty.
On the ascent I had utilised an apparently firm hold in the middle of a slab,
though being a staunch believer in the three points of attachment theory I
had also utilised good hand-holds, but when I descended this hold broke
away beneath my exploring foot. It was possible to descend the slab without
it, but very difficult, and it was half an hour before I succeeded in finding the
right combination of finger-holds. Climbing alone in such circumstances is a
trifle too exhilarating.

In safety once more at the foot of the buttress, I investigated the west side
of the buttress, and here there appeared to be a route, although not an easy
route. As a last alternative, I traversed across the mountain-side to determine
whether or not the glacier was acces-sible to the east of the route originally
planned. There may be a route here, but it is not a justifiable route, as the
lowermost tongue of the glacier is loaded with stones and boulders of all
sizes which it precipitates at intervals down the mountainside, and I soon
decided against any further reconnaissance. I was returning when of a
sudden there was a crash, and above a crag to my right, turning over and
over against the blue, there appeared a block of rock the size of a grand
piano. Without touching anything for several hundred feet, it descended with
a noise like a shell, struck the rocks with another crash and burst into
fragments which hummed and whistled through the air before plunging into
the snow-slopes below.

After lunching in camp, Wangdi and I set out to scale the upper buttress.
The climb began with a steep pitch with undercut holds; then it was easy
going to a wall about twenty feet high on which there was an awkward move
diagonally upwards to the left. There was only one satisfactory hold, and
getting on to it, while being pushed outwards at the same time by an
overhanging rock, was not easy, so critical was the balance. I managed it
with Wangdi waiting below to field me in the event of a slip. This wall was
the only serious difficulty, and above it a series of easier pitches and grassy
ledges brought us to the crest of the buttress.

The usual afternoon mists had formed, so we waited in hopes of a
temporary clearance. It came, and we saw before us a slabby ridge, running
up to the left of the glacier. As we were merely reconnoitring we left the
rope and followed the ridge as far as the slabby portion, then traversed off it
on to a snow-slope which should afford an alternative route in the event of
the slabs proving impracticable. Well satisfied with our reconnaissance, we
returned to camp.

There was plenty of juniper handy and to counteract the evening chill we
built a large fire. If the base camp life was remote from civilisation, this life
of the bivouac camp was remoter still. There was not a breath of wind and
the smoke of the fire curled lazily up the cliff to vanish in the deepening blue
of the evening sky. From our position, which must have been about 2,500
feet above the base camp, we gazed down the lower-most portion of the
Bhyundar Valley to the hills of Joshimath and the Kuari Pass. A vast range
of cloud lay athwart the foothills, glowing so brilliantly that the shadowed
hillsides in our vicinity reflected a faint opalescence. But the splendour of
these cloudy citadels was short-lived, and half an hour after sunset night had
fallen.

There is nothing that promotes an intimacy of spirit better than a camp
fire. He is dull and unimaginative who cannot sense the spirit of
comradeship that persists within this warm circle of dancing light. Wangdi
talked to me of Nanga Parbat, and though my Urdu was execrable I could
understand very well what he said, for there are occasions when language is
no bar to understanding. He had taken part in the 1934 Expedition, which
ended disastrously when three Germans and six porters lost their lives in a
blizzard. After describing it he said:

“I have always felt that Nanga Parbat is different from other mountains.
There is something there that will kill you if it can. It is a cursed mountain. I
was asked to go again this year, but I said no, I would rather come with you,
because I am quite sure there will be another accident and that many lives
will be lost.”

I can see him now, cross-legged on the ground, the red firelight on his
hard face, his lips clenching the inevitable cigarette-holder.

Pasang woke me next morning at 4.30 and at 5.15 Wangdi and I were
away, leaving Pasang at the camp, Now that we knew the route we made
rapid progress. The slabby ridge proved practicable and ended in a moraine
where many primulas were growing, although the height cannot have been
less than 16,000 feet.

A sloping shelf led without difficulty across the glacier to a snow-field
whence the rocks rose sheer for fully 3,000 feet. Only at one point was there
any hope of scaling them without excessive and, to judge from the amount
of fallen stones on the glacier, unjustifiable diffi-culty, and that was where
the ridge already mentioned slanted steeply upwards towards the crest of the
wall.

Unfortunately the ridge ended in formidable cliffs. We tried at first to
climb these but after wrestling with a loose gully and looser rocks above it,
were forced to retreat and seek an alternative. This was by no means obvious
until we discovered a snow- filled gully leading through the rocks to the crest
of the ridge. The unpleasing feature of this gully was a wide crevasse at the
foot of it, which had to be crossed by a snow-bridge. The crevasse was wide
and abysmally deep and with two on a rope the fragile snow-bridge spanning
it had to be treated with circumspection. Wangdi did not like it at all, but
then he had spent three hours in a crevasse on Kangchenjunga, so some
prejudice against crevasses in general must be allowed him.

Once on the crest of the ridge, the going was straight-forward for a time
up broken rocks and sharp snow edges, but the general angle increased
gradually and with it the difficulties, whilst the weather was now brought to
our attention by a drizzle of snow.

The crest of the wall was now not far above us, but the rocks leading to it
were much steeper than t had supposed ; in fact, where the rib ended, they
sprang upwards in an almost vertical wall on which the snow, fallen during
the recent bad weather, had accumulated to a considerable depth.

Our objective was a conspicuous rock-peak immediately to the west of a
snowy gap, whence falls the snow-filled gully previously noted, and our one
chance of success lay in crossing this gully and climbing directly up the
steep face of the peak. It was an impressive place and obviously extremely
difficult. Wangdi did not like the look of it and was, like myself,
unfavourably impressed by the snow-covered slabs we should have to
traverse in entering the gully. Fortunately there was an excellent block of
rock around which the rope could be placed to secure the party, and with this
to hearten me I embarked on the traverse. It reminded me strongly of the
slabs beyond the great gully on Everest. True, the angle was steeper and the
snow, instead of being loose and powdery, was wet and heavy, but in the
feeling of insecurity there was a remarkable affinity between the two places.

When at length I reached the gully, my doubts were resolved into
certainty. The angle was steep and the snow so soft that at every step I went

in above the knees. True, there was a slight crust due to the over-night frost,
but even if we succeeded in crossing safely, what would it be like when we
returned? It would certainly avalanche. And there was no security; the gully
was too wide to allow of enough rope to secure one man to the rocks while
the other man crossed. To add to the jest, snow suddenly began to fall
thickly and the wind rose, sending it scurrying across the already snow-
plastered crags.

“This is no good. Let us go down.” Wangdi’s voice was urgent. He was
right.’ Nothing was to be gained by reconnoitring further.

I rejoined him and we descended as quickly as possible through the
snowstorm. Lower, it was raining and we arrived back at the camp soaked
through. But we soon forgot our misery and sense of failure when some hot
tea prepared by the thoughtful Pasang was inside us. Thus ended a climb
which by Alpine standards would have been accounted a difficult
expedition. Our highest point was about 18,500 feet, which meant that we
had climbed 4,000 feet from our camp.

It was still raining when an hour later we descended to the base camp. I
was first down and as I neared the camp, I saw Tewang, who was seated
near the fire, suddenly dart into the porters’ tent. He reappeared just before I
reached the camp and came out a few yards to greet me. There was a smirk
of righteousness on his broad face. He was wearing his climbing boots.

CHAPTER XIII
A ROCK CLIMB

THE morning following the unsuccessful attempt to climb the rock wall,
Nurbu arrived with the mail, and news of the terrible disaster on Nanga
Parbat — the worst disaster in the history of mountaineering. It occurred on
the night of June 15th, when an avalanche overwhelmed the camp, killing
seven Germans and nine Sherpa porters. The news cast a gloom over our
small camp, for my men had all lost friends. I had known the leader, Dr.
Karl Wien, and had felt confident that he would lead his party to success.
From the first newspaper reports it appeared that he had escaped, but these
were false ; he had died like Willy Merkl, the leader of the 1934 expedition,
amid the snows of that most terrible and death-dealing of Himalayan peaks.

The weather was in poor shape, but not bad enough to prevent flower-
hunting. The abundant rain and warmth of the past few days had had the
effect of bringing many plants into bloom. The wide stony river-bed a mile
above the camp was coloured a brilliant magenta by a willow herb

(Epilobium latifolium) which flourishes on a diet of river-borne grit. In much
the same situation grew two allardias (A. glabra and A. tomentosa). A.
tomentosa grows six or eight inches high and resembles a miniature
marguerite, delicate pink in colour and with silvery foliage scarcely less
beautiful than its flowers. A. glabra is much smaller and its almost stalkless
blooms grow close to the gritty ground. At the sight of such flowers, I used
sometimes to experience a feeling almost of despair. How could I ever hope
to grow them in England as they grew here? Would they not lose their
delicacy and become coarse and lank in the damp British climate?

But the Allardia represented only one species in the vast family of
Compositae, now in bloom. In stony places, and particularly along the tops
of banks, was a white foam of anaphalis, and I remembered that after the
Kamet Expedition, when Its members reunited at a dinner, Raymond
Greene, who had brought a number home, presented each of us with a little
bouquet — a happy thought.

All over the lower slopes of the valley a little senecio had put in an
appearance. It reminded me a trifle distastefully of its bigger brother, the
ragwort, which is a pest of the British countryside. There is a field of it near
my home and my garden receives annually some millions of its seeds, a
large proportion of which ger-minate. There was also an artemisia (A.
Roxburghiana) a member of a family which must have one of the largest
distributions in the world, except for the daisy and buttercup families, an
inula (I. grandijtora) which resembled a small sun-flower, and a tall
solittago (S. Virgaured), a species of the golden rod or Aaron’s rod of
British gardens, whilst the erigeron family was represented by a charming
purple daisy (E. multiradiatus ) .

Montmorency had come to an end but now that there were sheep and
goats in the valley it was easy to procure fresh meat. A mile from the base
camp an old shepherd had taken up his abode in a stone hut which he had
roofed cunningly with strips of birch-bark, and from him I purchased a sheep
for five rupees. He was a fine-looking old chap, and his deep-set eyes,
seamed at the corners with innumerable tiny wrinkles, had that far-away
look acquired by eyes used to searching far horizons. His clothes and
footgear would not have fetched sixpence in the Commercial Road, but he
had discovered something that untold millions cannot purchase — peace and
happiness.

Every day he used to bring me sheep’s milk in a little brass bowl. He
asked for and expected nothing in return, but Wangdi told me that any empty
tins I had to give him would be much appreciated, so I presented him with a

biscuit tin. He was delighted; that biscuit tin might have been a golden
casket filled with precious jewels.

During the afternoon and evening of July 9th, the weather improved and
the following morning was cloudless. On the spur of the moment I decided
to camp below the glacier pass which, as already mentioned, leads over the
range of peaks to the north of the valley about two miles to the east of the
route described in the last chapter.

A mile or so up the valley the flowers were at their best and I shall never
forget the scene where a clear-running stream meandered down to join the
muddy glacier torrent. Millions upon millions of the little knot weed,
Polygonum affine, covered the ground so densely as to form an unbroken
carpet of rosy bloom, whilst scarcely less prodigal were the white
everlastings, rivalling in their matchless purity the fleecy clouds already
gather-ing about the peaks. The hillside was red with the Potentilla
argyrophylla, blue with cynoglossum and purple with geraniums, and on the
flat stony floor of the main stream bed were acres of puce willow herb.

A little distance farther on we turned up flower-clad slopes which
increased in steepness the higher we climbed. Here grew a large purple aster
with widely separated petals, which I recognised at once from Holdsworth’s
description as Aster diplostephioid.es; a noble flower, not growing in
colonies but scattered singly over the slopes. As a contrast to these more
obvious beauties was a. tiny blue forget-me-not-like flower, growing on
sheltered gritty slopes where it could not be over-run by larger plants, but
the most delightful plant of ah, if comparisons are permissible, was a
cremanthodium (C. Decaisnei) which I found in the shelter of a rock at
about 14,000 feet, a comparatively low elevation for this height-loving plant.
Its little golden flower re-minded me of the Alpine soldawlla, for it is about
the same size and droops its head in the same way ; a very coy and shy little
gem of the high mountain.

After climbing slopes so steep that we were glad of our ice-axe picks on
the slippery turf, we gained a ridge sloping at a moderate angle. Some
distance up this was perched a huge boulder, forming a cave on the lower
side which, to judge from the sheep droppings, was a favourite pull-in for
shepherds and their flocks. The men welcomed it, as it reminded them of a
Tibetan camping-ground, and wanted to pitch my tent on a solid mass of
sheep droppings, being genuinely surprised when I objected. Otherwise, it
was a charming spot. Close at hand was a stream, which cascaded down
some rock slabs fringed with marigolds, whilst the turf ah around was
packed tight with innumerable little plants.

Soon after we camped rain fell heavily, but it ceased later, disclosing a
lurid sunset. Himalayan sunsets are seldom as colourful as Alpine sunsets,
and in atmospheric beauty not to be compared with those of Britain, but this
was an exceptional occasion, due no doubt to an excess of water-vapour in
the atmosphere, and Gauri Parbat glowed like a forging just withdrawn from
a blast furnace, and continued to glow long after the first stars had appeared.

As I lay in my sleeping-bag, I could watch through the door of the tent the
upward creeping tide of purple shadow, an iridescent opal at its edge, slowly
engulfing the glowing precipices until only the final crest was left to the sun.
This faded and the purple deepened; then, unexpectedly, and it must have
been due to the re-flection from some high and far-distant clouds, the glow
returned, not as brightly as before, but of sufficient strength to lift the great
mountain out of the night for a few moments in an unearthly splendour. This
was the last of the day and was quickly superseded by the usual pale after-
glow that invests high snow-peaks in a light infinitely cold so that they
resemble icebergs floating on a dark sea.

I woke in the night with a start to hear a dull roaring sound and above it a
succession of sharper crashes. A fall of stones was descending in a
neighbouring gully, and looking out of the tent I saw a long line of
scintil-lating sparks as the boulders collided with one another or struck
against stationary boulders, an unusual sight which I have seen only once
before.

It was a fine morning when Pasang woke me at four o’clock, except that
the dawn-light was diffused by high mists. From the camp a grassy boulder-
strewn ridge took us easily upwards to a small snow-field sloping to the crest
of the pass, which we reached within two hours of leaving the camp. The
shepherds who cross this pass to Mana face considerable risks, as the
northern slope of the pass consists of a steep and crevassed glacier which
forms a tributary glacier of a much larger ice-stream in the valley
descending towards that village.

The weather was threatening, and the light early mists had deepened into
an opaque pall beneath which the peaks and ranges to the south stood stark
and for-bidding. More for the sake of exercise than anything else, we
scrambled up a minor rocky eminence imme-diately to the east of the pass. I
had hoped for a view of the Mana Peak but it and the nearer ranges were
concealed by clouds. Our intention was to climb something if possible and
my attention was immediately arrested by a striking rock-peak to the east of
the pass which forms an outpost, some 19,000 feet high, of Nilgiri Parbat.
To climb it from the pass would mean a climb of great difficulty, but the

formation of the mountain suggested that if the ridge between it and Nilgiri
Parbat could be reached, the summit should prove accessible. To do this, it
was necessary to traverse steep glacier slopes for some distance, and then
climb directly upwards. At the same time we must keep an eye on the
weather and be prepared to retreat quickly in the event of a storm.

In the Alps mountainsides usually turn out to be less steep than they
appear, but the reverse applies in the Himalayas, and we found ourselves on
slopes far steeper than they had appeared from the pass. Fortu-nately, the
snow was in good condition, but was not more than a few inches deep and
rested on hard ice. A fall on a slope of this kind must be checked at once, as
it is not possible to drive in the ice-axe deeply enough to form a good belay
for the rope, and I kept a watchful eye on Pasang. He, however, was going
better than usual, probably because he was unladen, and he accomplished the
passage without the semblance of a slip. Next came a scramble up some
rocks to a snow-slope which brought us to an almost level snow-field
immedi-ately beneath the ridge for which we were aiming. At the sight of
the ridge our hopes of reaching it easily were immediately dashed, for a face
some 1,000 feet high and defended at its base by a bergschrund (marginal
crevasse) separated us from it. To the left was a belt of overhanging slabs,
but to the right of these there was a chance of climbing an exceedingly steep
slope to a point on the ridge about a quarter of a mile from the summit. It
was no place for a large party, so leaving Pasang and Nurbu on the snow-
field, Wangdi and I set out to attempt the summit.

The bergschrund was bridged with snow in many places and we crossed it
without difficulty. From the snow-field the slope had looked steep and it
proved even steeper than it looked. Prior to the recent snow-fall it had been a
sheet-of ice, but six inches of snow now adhered firmly and had frozen so
hard that step-cutting was necessary. We had not progressed far when the
sun appeared; the weather was improving, but we did not altogether
welcome this as it meant that sooner or later the snow would soften on the
ice. It behoved us to move quickly and we did not pause until we had
reached the first of the rock slabs. These were awkward to negotiate, for they
were smooth and without belays for the rope. With any other porter I would
not have attempted them, but Wangdi had already proved that he could
climb safely and steadily on really difficult ground.

As we reached the ridge, a burst of song fell on our ears and looking to
the left we saw three or four little brown birds perched on a boulder, all
singing lustily and very sweetly. This desolate ridge over 19,000 feet above
the sea was a strange place to find song-birds. What were they doing there?

Could it be that, like us, they were impelled to this high and lonely place by
the spirit of the hills?

The ridge stretched almost horizontally to the foot of a rock step fully 1 00
feet high. There was no turning this either to the right or to the left as far as
we could see, and the only chance of climbing it was to tackle it en face
where there was a crack which widened out higher into a chimney. The rock
was excellent, a rough clean granite that reminded me of the Chamonix
Aiguilles.

Having seen to it that Wangdi was securely placed and well belayed by
the rope to a bollard of rock, I essayed the crack. This was awkward and
strenuous rather than technically difficult, but strenuous climbing is
tantamount to difficult climbing at high altitudes where even an ordinary
arm pull is exhausting; indeed, of Everest it can be said that if the climber
nearing the summit encounters a rock, be it only eight feet high, where an
arm pull is necessary he will, failing an alternative route, not succeed in
reaching the summit.

From the crack there was an awkward step on to the slab at its side, a
balancing movement which I could only accomplish when I had completely
recovered my wind. The chimney above had to be climbed by means of back
and knee work which involved such a strain that I had to halt and rest after
every upward shove of my feet and arms. It was overhanging and roofed
above and I had to leave it in favour of the right-hand wall, to do which I
had to balance round a comer on small holds. I now found that above me
was a slab about fifteen feet high, leading to easier rocks. It needed only a
strenuous pull on my arms to take me up this, but I had discovered already
that strenuous arm pulls were to be avoided at all costs. The alternative was
a route to the right. This was not so strenuous but it was much more difficult,
yet tired as I was by the stmggle in the chimney, there was no alternative but
to follow it. I had taken two steps, and was in the middle of a third, when
there was a tug at my waist and a shout from Wangdi announcing that I had
mn out the whole of our eighty-foot rope. I was within an ace of climbing
the slab, but there was nothing for it but to retreat and bring up my
companion to the foot of the chimney. I had no belay for the rope and was
standing on inch-wide holds, so I shouted down to Wangdi, illustrated my
meaning by gesticulating with one hand while holding on with the other, that
on no account must he use the rope as a hand-hold and, even more
important, that he must not slip as I could not possibly hold him. But
Wangdi was always the one to rise to an occasion, and within a minute or
two I heard him panting hard at the base of the chimney. There were now

thirty feet of spare rope available, just enough to allow me to climb to the
top of the step, where Wangdi, now well secured by the rope, presently
joined me. It had been a hard piece of rock climbing, the hardest I had ever
done at the height.

A little higher, the ridge looked so difficult that, as we were in no mood
for further strenuous climbing if it could be avoided, we followed an easier
line across the east face of the mountain until we were able to climb directly
upwards over steep and broken but not especially difficult rocks to a point
above the difficulties. The top of the peak was only a few yards away and
soon we were seated on a slab with a detached boulder, the actual summit,
resting upon it.

It was 10.30 a.m., five hours since we had left the camp. Wangdi was
delighted and full of grins. The first thing / did was to take off my boots and
rub my feet, which had become wet, cold and numbed during the ascent of
the snow-slope. This did not satisfy my energetic companion who, seizing
some snow, pro-ceeded to massage them vigorously. If mountaineers have
nightmares, the nightmare of the lost boot or boots must surely take
precedence over all other night-mares. On this occasion Wangdi, deciding
that my boots were not in a safe place, suddenly lifted them over his head
and deposited them in a niche behind him. He did it so quickly that for one
awful moment I thought he was going to drop them.

There was little view owing to mists, but 1,500 feet beneath us we could
see Nurbu and Pasang waiting patiently. As a reminder of our success
Wangdi, who had already let out stentorian yells, prised some rocks away
which raced down the slabby face and ice-slopes, leapt the bergschrund and
finally came to rest only a few yards from the pair, who jumped up and
bolted to his huge delight.

The weather was windless and the sun warm, but these very conditions
made an immediate descent imperative; so after Wangdi’s rubbing had
restored the circulation to my feet and my waterlogged socks had been
wrung out and partially dried, I replaced my boots whilst Wangdi occupied
himself in building a commemoratory cairn, after which we commenced the
descent.

I must confess that I disliked intensely the prospect of descending the zoo-
foot step, although, as I knew from experience, descending difficult rocks in
the Himalayas is far easier than ascending them; so when we approached the
step I looked for an alternative. There was only one possibility, a diagonal

route down the face to join our ascending track at about two-thirds of its
height, and this I very unwisely decided to take.

In order to reach the snow-slopes about 100 feet of rock slabs had to be
descended. These were not only steep but singularly holdless, Wangdi went
first, firmly held by me from the ridge. Having run out the full length of the
rope he called on me to follow. I did so, devoutly hoping that he was well
placed. He was not and when, after a very careful descent, I reached him, I
found him perched on a tiny ledge supporting himself with one hand whilst
taking in the rope with the other. It was a miserable stance, with no vestige
of a belay and I implored him to climb very slowly and carefully. He did so,
and when at length he reached the foot of the slabs I breathed a sigh of relief.
But my relief was short lived, for in another moment he began to cut steps
and it was only too plain from the sound of his blows that he was cutting
into ice, not snow as I had anticipated. He progressed with painful slowness
and appeared to have such difficulty in planting his feet firmly that, standing
as I was on small holds and powerless to check a slip, my anxiety was
intensified every moment.

Once again the rope ran out and Wangdi called on me to follow. I shouted
to him to drive in his ice-axe, and place the rope round it, but this he seemed
unable to do. The reason was made plain to me when I descended. The slabs
did not end as they appeared to end, but continued covered by a sheet of ice
about one inch thick, which in turn was covered by an inch or so of powdery
snow. All Wangdi had been able to do was to cut nicks in this ice plating just
large enough for the extreme toes of his boots. It was the most evil place I
have ever climbed and was fraught with every potentiality for disaster.

I realised now what a mistake I had made to leave the ridge; however,
there was nothing for it but to continue and hope that within a few yards we
should come to good snow. Driving in the pick of my axe as best I could,
and trusting that the toes of my boots would not slip from the minute holds, I
descended to Wangdi, who seemed to be standing on nothing in particular.
Once again he descended and once again I abjured extreme caution, for I
doubt whether he realised what a horribly dangerous place it was we were
climbing. And yet he was skill and caution personified: a Knubel or a
Lochmatter* could not have descended more confidently. Forty feet more
and up came a reassuring shout — he was on the good snow. It was not so
hard as formerly, but this was to our advantage, for we were able to face
inwards to the slope and kick steps. Moving without pause and both together
we presently rejoined our upward track, and half an hour later came up to
Pasang and Nurbu, who had throughout watched the proceedings with great

interest, but without understanding the difficulties or dangers we had
endured.

The snow of the traverse was in good condition and soon we were back on
the pass, whence a series of glissades and a downhill run took us in little
over half an hour back to the camp, where we had a long rest and a meal.

An hour or two later as we dawdled along the Bhyundar Valley I was able
to appreciate once more the joys of climbing in Garhwal. A little while ago
we had been straining every muscle on as steep and difficult a peak as I have
ever climbed in the Himalayas, and now we were among the flowers; the
perfect mountaineering contrast. It had been a great day’s climbing.

CHAPTER XIV
THE LOWER ALP

So far my flower-hunting had been confined to the upper part of the
valley above a height of 1 1,500 feet. I now decided to camp below the gorge
and explore the pastures of the middlemost portion.

The day following the ascent of the rock-peak I spent resting and
attending to correspondence. I had been looking forward to a visit from Mr.
P. Mason, the Deputy Commissioner of Garhwal, and Mrs. Mason, but a
coolie arrived with a note to say that Mrs. Mason was ill at Badrinath and
that their visit would have to be cancelled. They sent with the coolie a gift of
apples, eggs and onions. The eggs I especially welcomed as since leaving
Ranikhet I had been unable to purchase one, the reason being that the
Brahmin regards chickens as unclean.

The following morning, July i3th, I descended the valley with Wangdi
and Nurbu. We camped on the alp below the gorge, where the flowers, if
nothing like so abundant as they were in the upper part of the valley, at least
justified an investigation. I found a purple orchis and a small arum I had not
seen before, whilst the camp was surrounded by the white Anemone
obtusiloba, and innumerable strawberries, which carpeted the ground so
densely it was impossible to take a step without crushing a dozen or more:
Nurbu soon collected a hatful, and I had them for lunch crushed up in
sheep’s milk, but they were lamentably tasteless, not to say indigestible.

After lunch I wandered off on my own up the side of a gully, where some
monkshood was already in seed. I was not hopeful of finding anything of
interest and I was about to turn back when in a moist, mossy place under
some rocks above me, watered by a tiny spring, I saw a gleam of pure white.

I scrambled up the slope and came face go face with one of the most
beautiful little primulas (P. Wigramiand) I have ever seen. There were a
score or more altogether nestling amid cushions of bright green moss.
They were white, with a soft butterfly-like bloom on their petals, and they
shone out of that shadowed place like stars fallen to earth. I had not seen this
primula before, nor did I see it again.

Thus encouraged, I climbed out of the gully into the forest above it. This
consisted partly of deciduous trees and partly of conifers; there was also a
flowering shrub with a syringe a-like flower. I ascended, sometimes having
to force my way through undergrowth, till I neared the foot of the great cliff
which forms one of the jaws of the gorge. Then I stopped. I cannot quite
explain why I stopped, but immediately I did so, I became aware of a
stillness in which not a single leaf quivered. There was one sound: a tree
cricket somewhere, droning out a single monotonous note which rose and
fell like the hum of a distant sawmill, but suddenly this ended and after that
the silence closed in upon me. And with the silence there came to me a
curious and wholly inexplicable dread. Dread of what? I am imaginative but
not, I beh’eve, nervous, but when I advanced a step and a twig cracked like a
pistol shot beneath my foot, I jumped violently and I could not explain why.

I climbed for a few minutes more until I was not fifty paces from the foot
of the great cliff, which loomed above me and above the forest, projecting
here and there in black, .slimy bulges, whence water dripped with an
occasional furtive patter into the forest. Perhaps it was this cliff with its
potent and somehow relentless force that impressed itself upon me, that and
the silence of the forest. Then I saw that beneath the cliff there was a cave
and that all around the cave the damp ground was trampled and crushed as
though by some heavy beast. I looked at the dark mouth of this cave, and
though I could see nothing, I felt that there was something looking at me —
something malevolent. Had I stumbled on a bear’s lair? If so, it were better
not to investigate further; I was alone, and an ice-axe is a poor substitute for
a rifle.

So I retreated, and I do not mind admitting that I cast a glance or two
backwards over my shoulder. I had seen nothing and heard nothing, yet
some primitive instinct told me that I had been in danger. Was it
imagination? If so, why did that great mountaineer, C. F. Meade, write: “The
mystery and thrill of travel is always upon one in the Himalayas, but the
mystery is awful, and the thrill is sometimes a shudder?”

Heavy rain fell in the night, but next morning was bright and clear. The
atmosphere had been scoured of water-vapour, and the distances had that

brilliant electric-blue tinge, common to mountainous regions after bad
weather. The pastures were a vivid green, the forests by contrast dark, and
the peaks blue and remote against a bluer sky.

We were early astir and after breakfast Nurbu and I descended the valley
in search of flowers. Below the alp, a stream hurrying downwards to join the
main torrent had been bridged with logs, faggots and stones by the
shepherds; beyond it was a slope speckled red with the largest wild
strawberries I have ever seen, and beyond this again pine forest. A forest is
very beautiful on a fine morning after rain. The sombre shadows cast by the
trees emphasise the pools of light spilled by the sun. Here is a mossy place,
hoary with dew and lit by a shaft of sunlight, and here a graceful fern frond
in sharp and shining relief against the shadow. On such a morning the
gloomiest forest seems charged with laughter, the whisper of falling water-
drops, the breeze in the treetops, and the cadence of a small stream; the pipes
of Pan sound sweet-noted down the dim sun- flecked aisles.

There were few flowers, and many ferns, but where the path emerged
from the forest on to a lower alp, I found a tall euphorbia (E, pilosa), a
yellowish-green undistinguished plant and a, purple-flowered, many-headed
daisy. The alp had no novelities, but was bright with potentillas and
anemones. I had better luck at the lower end of it, for here I discovered the
first aquilegia (A, vulgaris). I had seen in Garhwal, a blue flower which was
growing in one place only, an area of not more than twenty yards square. I
never saw it again, and when I returned in the autumn for its seed I found
that the sheep had eaten it.

We descended towards the torrent and there, in an alcove formed by two
boulders, I found a blue poppy. The altitude was not more than 9,000 feet,
which is unusually low for this flower. Then there was a host of rosy
Androsace primuloides running riot over the moulders, a blue lathyrus, a
purple motherwort (Leonurus) and a white-flowered shrub with singularly
long and sharp spines. But the most remarkable plant was a bright pink
Erifrwhium strictum which must have been a freak, as this flower is
normally blue. How did this come about? Was it due to some
chemicalisation of the soil, or to some unusual cross pollination? It is
interesting to note that the colour was precisely similar to that of the
Androsace primuloides which was growing in its thousands a yard or two
away. The monsoon warmth and rain, particularly the heavy rain of the
previous night, had roused the torrent to fury. In its presence it was almost
impossible to hear oneself speak and as Nurbu and I stood close to it the
raging water ejected a stone weighing several ounces which just missed my

head. I have never known such a thing happen before and it was obvious
from Nurbu’s expression that he placed a magical interpretation on it;
doubtless some disgruntled river-god was having a pot at me.

On the way back to camp we collected a large number of strawberries
which compensated in some degree for a joint full of maggots provided by
Tewang. After lunch we returned leisurely to the base camp, arriving there
in a rainstorm which, however, ceased later, allowing me as usual to enjoy
my supper in peace and contentment by the camp fire.

CHAPTER XV

THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN

since I had first seen that grand mountain named Nilgiri Parbat, 21,264
feet, by Lieutenant R. A. Gardiner of the Survey of India, I had on several
occasions turned over in my mind the possibility of an ascent. I had
examined the mountain from the west, south and east and from these
directions there did not seem the least hope of an attempt proving successful.
The sole remaining possibility was a route from the north or north-west.
There were two possible lines of approach one via the Bhyundar Pass and
the Banke Glacier and the other via the snow pass, which I had already
visited, and the glacier-filled valley which runs in its uppermost portion
roughly parallel with the Bhyundar Valley. I decided on the last-named
approach, as it at least involved the exploration of a valley the upper portion
of which, as far as I knew, had not been visited by Europeans.

On July 16th I left the base camp, taking with me Wangdi, Pasang and
Nurbu with light equipment and provisions for five days. The past week had
seen many more flowers come into bloom, prominent among which was the
pedicularis. This plant goes by the unpleasant popular name of lousewort,
from the Latin pediculus, a louse, as one of the species, Pedicularis
palustris, was said to infect sheep with a lousy disease ; but it would be
difficult to associate the beautiful pedicularis of the Bhyundar Valley with
any disease, particularly the Pedicularis siphonantjia with its light purple
blooms.

There were also many dwarf geraniums and the saussurea, which grows
in an astonishing variety of forms, varying from wide-spreading, flatfish
leaves with purple corn-flower-like blooms rising almost stalkless in the
centre, to curious balloon-shaped plants and little balls of silver-grey wool
that grow high up above the snow-line.

Gentians, formerly conspicuous by their absence, with the exception of
the ubiquitous Gentiana aprica, were also in bloom, and I came across a
plant (G. venusta) like a small edition of that well-known denizen of the
alps, G. acaulis. It seems very shy of opening its petals and its little flower is
almost stalkless. There was also growing in moist mossy places among the
rocks Primula replant, which rivals the Primula minutissima in delicacy.
With so much beauty and interest attached to the ascent I scarcely noticed
that I was walking uphill.

As we passed near some boulders, there was a sudden startled squawking
and half a dozen or more young pheasants flew out from a small cave.
Wangdi was greatly excited at this, and said that the birds would return to
roost. I must confess that my mouth watered so much at the thought of roast
pheasant as a change from sheep and goat that then and there I consented to
a most nefarious expedition, which was planned to take place after dark.

In order to shorten the morrow’s march we camped several hundred feet
above our former camping place by the edge of a snow-drift amidst
hundreds of Primula denticulata, many of which were still in bud. As I had
found the same species of primula in seed five weeks previously, this struck
me as remarkable. As late as October 7th I found flowering plants in ground
where avalanche snow had recently melted. It would be interesting to know
what process takes place in a plant that is covered for a year or more by
avalanche snow, as must often occur in this country. Does it continue to
live? Presumably it does, as even compacted avalanche snow contains an
appreciable quantity of air. Small wonder that in England gardeners
experience difficulty in growing a high Alpine or Himalayan plant, for these
supposedly hard plants are not really as hardy as plants that grow at much
lower elevations, which are exposed to climatic conditions all the year
round. It is nothing short of miraculous that a plant which lies dormant,
protected by a covering of snow for six months of the year, should deign to
grow in our bewildering climate.

It was almost completely dark when Wangdi poked his head in at the door
of my tent and with a wicked grin announced himself as ready for the
murder of the innocents. Together with Nurbu and Pasang, who were armed
with blankets, we descended the boulder-clad hillside. A few yards from the
cave Wangdi whispered to me to wait; then he and the other two
conspirators crept forward as softly as cats. The next moment there was a
concerted rush and both entrances to the cave were stopped by blankets.
There was no answering scurry of startled birds, so Wangdi crawled under
one of the blankets and groped about inside. There were no pheasants

roosting there, and he retired into the open, saying things in Tibetan which
doubtless exercised the nuances of that language, but at the meaning of
which I could only guess. For a few moments I was as disappointed as he,
then the humour of our attempted murder struck us both simultaneously and
we burst into a roar of laughter.

Next morning we were away in excellent weather. Being lightly laden, I
was well ahead of the men. On approaching the pass, I was surprised to
notice some tracks in the snow, which I first took to be those of a man,
though we had seen no traces of shepherds. But when I came up to the tracks
I saw the imprint of a huge naked foot, apparently of a biped, and in stride
closely resembling my own tracks. What was it? I was very interested, and at
once proceeded to take some photographs. I was engaged in this work when
the porters joined me. It was at once evident when they saw the tracks that
they were frightened. Wangdi was the first to speak.

“Bad Manshi!” he said, and then “Mirka!” And in case I still did not
understand, “Kang Admi (Snowman).”

I had already anticipated such a reply and to reassure him and the other
two, for I had no wish for my expedi-tion to end prematurely, I said it must
be a bear or snow leopard. But Wangdi would have none of this and
explained at length how the tracks could not possibly be those of a bear,
snow leopard, wolf or any other animal. Had he not seen many such tracks
in the past? It was the Snowman, and he looked uneasily about him.

I am not superstitious. The number thirteen even in conjunction with a
Friday means nothing to me. I did not hesitate to walk under a ladder unless
there is the danger of a paint-pot falling on my head. Crossed knives, spilt
salt, and sailors drowning when glasses are made to ring, black coats, new
moons seen through glass, chimney-sweeps and such-like manifestations
leave me unmoved. But there was something queer, and I must admit that
Wangdi ’s argument and fear was not without its effect. The matter must be
investigated. So I got out of my rucksack a copy of the “Spectator” and with
a pencil proceeded to mark the size and stride of the track, while the men
huddled together, a prey to that curious sullenness which in the Tibetan
means fear.

About four inches of snow had fallen recently, and it was obvious that the
tracks had been made the previous evening after the sun had lost its power
and had frozen during the night, for they were perfect impressions distinct in
every detail. On the level the footmarks were as much as 13 inches in length
and 6 inches in breadth, but uphill they averaged only 8 inches in length,

though the breadth was the same. The stride was from 1 8 inches to 2 feet on
the-level, but considerably less uphill, and the footmarks were turned
out- wards at about the same angle as a man’s. There were the well-defined
imprints of five toes, i£ inch to if inch long and £ inch broad, which, unlike
human toes, were arranged symmetrically. Lastly there was at first sight
what appeared to be the impression of a heel, with two curious toe-like
impressions on either side.

Presently the men plucked up courage and assisted me. They were
unanimous that the Snowman walked with his toes behind him and that the
impressions at the heel were in reality the front toes. I was soon able to
disprove this to my own satisfaction by discovering a place where the beast
had jumped down from some rocks, making deep impressions where he had
landed, and slithering a little in the snow. Superstition, how-ever, knows no
logic, and my explanation produced no effect whatever on Wangdi. At
length, having taken all the photographs I wanted on the pass, I asked the
men. to accompany me and follow up the tracks. They were very averse to
this at first, but eventually agreed, as they said, following their own “logic,”
that the Snowman had come from, not gone, in that direction. From the pass
the tracks followed a broad, slightly ascending snow-ridge and, except for
one divergence, took an almost straight line. After some 300 yards they
turned off the ridge and descended a steep rock-face fully 1,000 feet high
seamed with snow gullies. Through my monocular glass I was able to follow
them down to a small but considerably crevassed glacier, descending
towards the Bhyundar Valley and down this to the lowermost limit of the
new snow. I was much impressed by the difficulties overcome and the
intelligence displayed in overcoming them. In order to descend the face, the
beast had made a series of intricate traverses and had zigzagged down a
series of ridges and gullies. His track down the glacier was masterly, and
from our perch I could see every detail and how cunningly he had avoided
concealed snow-covered crevasses. An expert mountaineer could not have
made a better route and to have accomplished it without an ice-axe would
have been both difficult and dangerous, whilst the unroped descent of a
crevassed snow-covered glacier must be accounted as unjustifiable.
Obviously the “Snowman” was well qualified for membership of the
Himalayan Club.

My examination in this direction completed, we returned to the pass, and I
decided to follow the track in the reverse direction. The man, however, said
that this was the direction in which the Snowman was going, and if we
overtook him, and even so much as set eyes upon him, we should all drop

dead in oar tracks, or come to an otherwise bad end. They were so scared at
the prospect that I felt it was unfair to force them to accompany me, though I
believe that Wangdi, at least, would have done so had I asked him.

The tracks, to begin with, traversed along the side of a rough rock-ridge
below the minor point we had ascended when we first visited the pass. I
followed them for a short distance along the snow to one side of the rocks,
then they turned upwards into the mouth of a small cave under some slabs. I
was puzzled to account for the fact that, whereas tracks appeared to come
out of the cave, there were none going into it. I had already proved to my
own satisfaction the absurdity of the porters’ contention that the Snowman
walked with his toes behind “him; still, I was now alone and cut off from
sight of the porters by a mist that had suddenly formed, and I could not
altogether repress a ridiculous feeling that perhaps they were right after all;
such is the power of superstition high up in the lonely Hima-layas. I am
ashamed to admit that I stood at a distance from the cave and threw a lump
of rock into it before venturing further. Nothing happened, so I went up to
the mouth of the cave and looked inside; naturally there was nothing there. I
then saw that the single track was explained by the beast having climbed
down a steep rock and jumped into the snow at the mouth of the cave. I lost
the track among the rocks, so climbed up to the little summit we had
previously visited. The mist was now dense and I waited fully a quarter of an
hour for it to clear. It was a curious experience seated there with no other
human being within sight and some queer thoughts passed through my mind.
Was there really a Snowman? If so, would I encounter him? If I did an ice-
axe would be a poor substitute for a rifle, but Wangdi had said that even to
see a Snowman was to die. Evidently he killed you by some miraculous
hypnotism; then presumably gobbled you up. It was a fairy-tale come to life.

Then, at last, the mists blew aside. At first I could see no tracks coming
off the rock island on which I was seated, and this was not only puzzling but
disturbing, as it implied that the beast might be lurking in the rear vicinity.
Then I saw that the tracks traversed a narrow and almost concealed ridge to
another rock point, and beyond this descended a glacier to the east of our
ascending route to the pass. Whatever it was, it lived in the Bhyundar
Valley; but why had it left this pleasant valley for these inhospitable
altitudes, which involved difficult and dangerous climbing, and an ascent of
many thousands of feet?

Meditating on this strange affair, I returned to the porters, who were
unfeignedly glad to see me, for they had assumed that I was walking to my
death. I must now refer to the subsequent history of this business.

On returning to the base camp some days later, the porters made a
statement. It was witnessed by Oliver and runs as follows:

“We, Wangdi Nurbu, Nurbu Bhotia and Pasang Urgen, porters employed
by Mr. F. S. Smythe, were accompanying Mr. Smythe on July lyth over a
glacier pass north of the Bhyundar Valley when we saw on the pass tracks
which we knew to be those of a Mirka or jungli Admi (wild man). We have
often seen bear, snow leopard and other animal tracks, but we swear that
these tracks were none of these, but were the tracks of a Mirka.

“We told Mr. Smythe that these were the tracks of a Mirka and we saw
him take photographs and make measurements. We have never seen a Mirka
because anyone who sees one dies or is killed, but there are pictures of the
tracks, which are the same as we have seen, in Tibetan monasteries.”

My photographs were developed by Kodak Ltd. of Bombay under
conditions that precluded any subsequent accusation of faking and, together
with my measure-ments and observations, were sent to my literary agent,
Mr. Leonard P. Moore, who was instrumental in having them examined by
Professor Julian Huxley, Secretary of the Zoological Society, Mr. Martin A.
G. Hinton, Keeper of Zoology at the Natural History Museum, and Mr. R. I.
Pocock. The conclusion reached by these experts was that the tracks were
made by a bear. At first, due to a misunderstanding as to the exact locality in
which the tracks had been seen, the bear was said to be Ursus Arctos
Ptuinosus, but subsequently it was decided that it was Ursus Arctos
Isabellinus, which is dis-tributed throughout the western and central
Himalayas. The tracks agreed in size and character with that animal and
there Is no reason to suppose that they could have been made by anything
else. This bear sometimes grows as large, or larger, than a grizzly, and there
is a well-grown specimen in the Natural History Museum. It also varies in
colour from brown to silver-grey.

The fact that the tracks appeared to have been made by a biped is
explained by the bear, like all bears, putting its rear foot at the rear end of
the impression left by its front foot. Only the side toes would show, and this
explains the Tibetans’ belief that the curious indentations, in reality
superimposed by the rear foot, are the front toes of a Snowman who walks
with his toes behind him. This also explains the size of the spoor, which
when melted out by the sun would appear enormous. Mr. Eric Shipton
describes some tracks he saw near the peak of Nanda Ghunti in Garhwal as
resembling those of a young elephant. So also would the tracks I saw when
the sun had melted them away at the edges.

How did the legend originate? It is known over a considerable portion of
Tibet, in Sikkim and parts of Nepal, including the Sola Khombu Valley, the
home of the Sherpas on the south side of the Himalayas. The reason for this
probably lies in the comparative ease of communication on the Tibetan
plateau, as compared with that in the more mountainous regions south of the
Himalayan watershed, where it is known only to peoples of Buddhist faith,
such as the Sherpas of Nepal and the Lepchas of Sikkim. The Snowman is
reputed to be large, fierce, and carnivorous; the large ones eat yaks and the
small ones men. He is sometimes white, and sometimes black or brown.
About the female, the most definite account I have heard is that she is only
less fierce than the male, but is hampered in her move-ments by
exceptionally large pendulous breasts, which she must perforce sling over
her shoulders when walking or running.

Of recent years considerable force has been lent to the legend by
Europeans having seen strange tracks in the snow, sometimes-far above the
permanent snow-line, apparently of a biped. Such tracks had in all cases
been spoiled or partially spoiled by the sun, but if such tracks were made by
bears, then it is obvious that bears very seldom wander on to the upper
snows, otherwise fresh tracks unmelted by the sun would have been
observed by travellers. The movements of animals are incalculable, and
there seems no logical explanation as to why a bear should venture far from
its haunts of woodland and pasture. There is one point in con-nection with
this which may have an important Gearing on the tracks we saw, which I
have omitted previously in order to bring it in at this juncture. On the way up
the Bhyundar Valley from the base camp, I saw a bear about 200 yards
distant on the northern slopes of the valley. It bolted immediately, and so
quickly that I did not catch more than a glimpse of it, and disappeared into a
small cave under an overhanging crag. When the men, who were behind,
came up with me, I suggested that we should try to coax it into the open, in
order that I could photograph it, so the men threw stones into the cave while
I stood by with my camera. But the bear was not to be scared out so easily,
and as I had no rifle it was not advisable to approach for near to the cave. It
is possible that we so scared this bear that the same evening it made up the
hillside some 4,000 feet to the pass? There are two objections to this theory:
firstly, that it appeared to be the ordinary small black bear, and too small to
make tracks of the size we saw and, secondly, that the tracks ascended the
glacier fully a mile to the east of the point where we saw the bear. We may,
however, have unwittingly disturbed another and larger bear during our
ascent to our camp. At all events, it is logical to assume that an animal

would not venture so far from its native haunts without some strong motive
to impel it. One last and very interesting point — The Sikh surveyor whom I
had met in the Bhyundar Valley was reported by the Postmaster of
Joshimath as having seen a huge white bear in the neighbourhood of the
Bhyundar Valley.

It seems possible that the Snowman legend originated through certain
traders who saw bears when crossing the passes over the Himalayas and
carried their stories into Tibet, where they became magnified and distorted
by the people of that superstitious country which, though Buddhist in theory,
has never emancipated itself from ancient nature and devil worship. Whether
or not bears exist on the Tibetan side of the Himalayas I cannot say. It is
probable that they do in comparatively low and densely forested valleys such
as the Kharta and Kharma Valleys east of Mount Everest, and it may be that
they are distributed more widely than is at present known.

After my return to England I wrote an article, which was published by The
Times, in which I narrated my experiences and put forward my conclusions,
which were based, of course, on the identifications of the zoological experts.

I must confess that this article was provocative, not to say dogmatic, but
until it was published I had no idea that the Abominable Snowman, as he is
popularly known, is as much beloved by the great British public as the sea-
serpent and the Loch Ness Monster. Indeed, in debunking what had become
an institution, I roused a hornet’s nest about my ears. It was even proposed
by one gentleman in a letter to The Times that the Royal Geographical
Society and the Alpine Club should send a joint expedition to the Himalayas
in an attempt to prove or disprove my observations and conclusions. It was
obvious that the writer hoped that this expedition, if it took place, would not
only disprove them, but would prove the existence of the Abominable
Snowman. I can only say in extenuation of my crime that I hope there is an
Abominable Snowman. The tracks I saw were undoubtedly made by a bear,
but what if other tracks seen by other people were made by Abominable
Snowmen? I hope they were. In this murky age of materialism, human
beings have to struggle hard to find the romantic, and what could be more
romantic than an Abominable Snowman, together with an Abominable
Snow-woman, and, not least of all, an Abominable Snow-baby?

CHAPTER XVI
NILGIRI PARBAT

wangdi and Co. had obviously been severely shaken by the events
narrated in the last chapter, and it was a subdued little procession that crept
down the north side of the snow pass. For a while the descent lay over easy
slopes, then the glacier suddenly-’ broke away in a steep ice-fall, and we had
to descend carefully, cutting steps now and then, so that I marvelled at the
hardihood of the shepherds who traverse this pass, presumably without ropes
and ice-axes, and relying for their safety on an instinctive rather than a
reasoned knowledge of mountain-craft. In one or two places I had to keep a
careful watch on Pasang, for there were crevasses below waiting, as
Professor Tyndall might have said, for an erratic body.

Having passed the crevasses, we came to an unbroken snow-slope,
descending in a steep concave curve to the main glacier. There we unroped,
the better to glissade. Wangdi descended skilfully, whilst Nurbu at least
managed to get down without spilling himself, but Pasang, of course, could
not kick more than a few steps before he slipped. As usual he let go of his
axe, with which he could easily have stopped himself. His hat flew off, his
load wound itself round his neck, and down he came like an attenuated bag
of coals, his long limbs spread out like a starfish, whilst those below roared
with unmerciful laughter. It is a hard world for Pasangs,

Wangdi having good-naturedly retrieved the errant ice-axe and hat, we
continued on our way. The valley in which we found ourselves contained a
long glacier which, like all long glaciers in the Central Himalayas at this
time of the year, was largely denuded of snow and consisted for the most
part of dirty stone-covered ice. As we turned the comer, where the glacier
from the snow pass debouches on to the main glacier, Nilgiri Parbat came
into sight at the head of the latter. It had looked magnificent from the south,
east and west, and it was no less magnificent from the north-west. Built up
on terrific precipices, its summit cut knife-like into the blue. There was no
hope of climbing such precipices, yet there was one possibility, the north
face. Only the edge of this was visible, but it showed in profile, the best
angle of view when gauging the difficulties of a mountain. It was certainly
steep; I should not care to estimate its angle, but it cannot have been less
than 40°, on the average. How to get on to it? That problem would have to
wait until we could proceed across and over a muddle of ice-falls that
formed a half-circle at the head of the valley.

I was anxious to push on as far as possible that day, but it was plain that
the men had lost all interest in the proceedings. The Snowman had knocked
the stuffing out of them, and they lagged limply and sul-lenly behind as
though they fully expected Snowmen to leap out at them from behind every

large boulder. There is no dealing with the Bhotia or the Sherpa when he is
in this condition; superstition has much the same physical effect on the
native as the fear of high altitudes had on the early climbers of Mont Blanc.
My annoy-ance increased and finally when, after strolling ahead at a snail-
like pace, I had to halt and wait for over an hour to allow them to catch up
with me, I told Wangdi what I thought about him. But it was no use; he and
the others were tired, prematurely worn out by the terrors of the day : so we
camped on the side moraine below, not above, the main ice-fall of the
glacier as I had hoped, at a height which cannot have been more than 15,000
feet and may have been less, to judge from the vegetation in the vicinity.

After tea I scrambled up some rocks until I could look over the lower ice-
fall of the glacier. What I saw was magnificent, but scarcely encouraging.
Above the ice-fail there is an almost level glacier plateau, and above the
plateau a semi-circle of precipices and ice-falls. It was a savage and awe-
inspiring place and reminded me of that terrible cirque of Kangchenjunga
from which we had vainly tried to force a way in 1930. As regards Nilgiri
Parbat, I could now see that the uppermost part of the north face was glacier-
clad. The slope was steep and intersected in many places by ice-cliffs, but
once on it there seemed a chance that.the summit might prove accessible.
About 2,500 feet below the summit the mountain is linked by a ridge to a
neigh-bouring peak of about 19,000 feet, but any direct approach to this
ridge was out of the question owing to cliffs and ice-falls. In one place only
was there the remotest hope. This was where a long snow-crested buttress
ended against the north-west face of Nilgiri Parbat. If the crest could be
gained, it should be possible to traverse a shelf across the face through
broken ice to the foot of a steep snow gully ending on the ridge connecting
the mountain with an unnamed and unmeasured peak on the range extending
from it to the north-west. It is a complicated piece of topo-graphy and
difficult to describe. As for the north face of Nilgiri Parbat, this also is very
complicated, so much so that it was impossible to determine whether or not
a route could be made up it. But was the climb at all practicable? The camp
was 15,000 feet or less and Nilgiri Parbat is 21,264 feet. We should have to
descend some distance from the initial buttress in order to traverse the north-
west face towards the snow gully. Assuming such a descent to be 200 or 300
feet, it meant a climb from the camp of 6,500 feet, a tremendous climb in
one day, even on easy ground, in the Himalayas, and one which in all likely
hood would prove too long should the climbing prove difficult. So
depress-ing was the prospect that it seemed best to devote ourselves merely

to a reconnaissance and return later with more food and equipment for a
higher camp.

I cannot sleep well when a problem is weighing on my mind, and that
night constant and vivid lightning contributed to my wakefulness. Once I
roused myself to look out of the tent. To the west over the Alaknanda Valley
an intense electrical storm was raging. Tower- ing clouds were piled far up in
the sky and these were illuminated every second by fountains of mauve
light-ning. The storm was not far distant and every now and then the hollow
rumble of thunder echoed along the glacier. If anything was likely to settle
the issue it was the weather. But the lightning died away with the dawn and
the day broke calmly: and with it the con-viction came to me that we must
attempt Nilgiri Parbat, so at five o’clock I roused the men and we
breakfasted. I was not sure of their temper after the previous day’s
experiences, and I did not tell Wangdi that I intended to attempt the
mountain. Pasang I left at the camp to the mercy of the Abominable
Snowmen.

At 6 we were off. A tongue of ice led conveniently through the ice-fall.
Here and there step-cutting was necessary and we had to circumvent some
wide crevasses, but there was nothing to cause us more than a moment’s
pause, and within half an hour of leaving the camp we were on the plateau.

The buttress, which is sharp-crested above, splays out below into
precipices, which can be outflanked by a snow-slope and snow-ridge.
Crossing the plateau, we ascended this slope in a diagonal line designed to
keep us out of range of a mass of unstable-looking ice pinnacles. The snow
was hard frozen and step-cutting was necessary. I always welcome step-
cutting at the beginning of a climb, as there is nothing like it to instil vitality
and set the sluggish blood circulating. I had no need to look back to see how
Wangdi and Nurbu were faring; in some telepathic way I could feel them
through the rope. A night’s rest, coupled with that power possessed by the
Oriental for forgetting unpleasant experiences, had worked wonders. Fire,
dash and energy had returned to them.

The slope narrowed into a ridge. Swing — swish. Swing — swish. There is
heavenly music in the sound of an ice-axe slicing into hard-frozen snow. The
morning was still and cold and the great cirque, out of which we were
climbing, silent and immobile. On our left was a steep and narrow gully,
polished by falling debris, and bounding it an enormous mass of cold green
seracs, tinged with a pale opalescent light reflected from some sunlit snow-
peaks down the valley.

The ridge petered out into gently sloping snow. Immediately above was a
crevasse with a beard of icicles on its lip, and above that a steep snow-slope
leading up to the sharp crowning ridge of the buttress. The crevasse was
choked with snow in one place, and well held on the rope by Wangdi, I
gingerly crossed the bridge and cut steps up the lip. The slope above was
steep and consisted of ice covered with a skin of well-frozen snow. Later in
the day, when the sun had softened the snow, it would be impossible to
descend it without cutting steps in the ice, but there was a rock rib to the
right which should serve as an alternative route. Chopping steps and moving
all together, we were soon up the slope on to a ridge above. Here the sun
welcomed us and we halted for a short rest. It was now no longer necessary
for me to keep the men in the dark as to the objective, and I told them that
we would go to the summit if possible. Their reply was laconic and typical.
“Takai, Sahib.” (“All right, Sir.”)

So far the weather had been good, but now mists began to form. Above us
we could see the ridge rising in a parabolic curve to a rocky shoulder, then in
another curve which disappeared into the mist. A few minutes’ rest and we
recommenced the ascent. The snow was in good order, and to make a step
needed only a single vigorous kick. In places the ridge was sharp and needed
care, but there was no difficulty and presently, it must have been about 8.30,
we stood on the blunt topmost crest of the buttress. As we reached it the mist
cleared a little and we could see above us a series of huge ice-walls and
square-cut seracs. To the left was the shelf I had already seen. It was
comfortably wide, which meant that we need not pass dangerously near the
seracs, but it was downward sloping and traversing it involved the loss of
quite 300 feet of height; not much, but discouraging when so many
thousands of feet remained to be climbed.

It did not take more than a few minutes to reach the end of it and the foot
of the snow gully already mentioned, which is about 400 feet high and is
bounded on one side by seracs and on the other by rock-cliff At its base it
was defended by a bergschrund well choked with snow, so that, although
some cutting was necessary to climb over the lip, we were soon on the slope
above. This was steep, hard and icy. Every step throughout the whole of its
height had to be cut and each step took several chops with the axe. It was
hard work, but exhilarating work, too. Wangdi and Nurbu were going
splendidly and had the bit between their teeth. As for me, I had never felt
fitter in my life, and was enjoying every minute of as fine a snow-climb as I
had ever had. The gully was in shadow, but the sharp, thin snow-ridge in
which it ended was lit by the white fire of the sun. Slowly we approached

that ridge; then, held by Wangdi on the rope, I went ahead, driving in my
ice-axe as I approached the crest, in order to determine whether or not it was
corniced. It was not, and soon we were all moving along the blade-like crest,
which ended after about 100 yards in a little plateau beneath the final ice
face of the mountain. There we halted for another rest. It was ten o’clock
and we had climbed about 4,000 feet in four hours; fair going considering
the difficulties.

My mouth was very dry and I longed for a drink. I moistened it with snow
and ate some chocolate, though, as is usual during a hard day in the
Himalayas, I had no desire whatever to eat. Wangdi and Nurbu both refused
food, but I told them that if they did not eat we should not be able to reach
the top, to which Wangdi replied, “Of course we shall reach the top! “

As we sat in the snow the mists parted sufficiently to enable us to see the
face of the mountain. As already stated, this consists of a steep slope of neve
some 2,500 feet in height which ended to our left and at about our level in a
line of ice-cliffs overhanging precipices about 3,000 feet high falling to the
Banke Glacier. Had its angle been a degree or two steeper it must have been
rock like the south face of the mountain. As it was, the downward movement
of the neve had broken it up into stracs of which the largest formed a wall of
ice 100-200 feet high which intersected the face for about three-quarters of
its breadth. I had planned to ascend the face by its westernmost edge, but
this was not practi-cable owing to broken ice. The sole remaining hope was
to make a route diagonally upwards across it to the north-east ridge. At first
this did not seem a feasible alternative; for one thing it involved a long and
complicated climb and for another it meant passing beneath numerous siracs
and the frowning ramparts of the great ice-wall. Since the recent snowfall
there had been two small falls of ice, but the clean-cut nature of the seracs
and” the ice-wall suggested that avalanches only broke away very
occasionally. The last and most important point to be considered was the
condition of the snow. In no circumstances could an avalanche be risked, for
with precipices below the end of a party-would be swift and certain. At
present it was in good order, and the danger, if any, would occur later in the
day when the sun had worked on the slope, though at present mist partially
screened the mountain from that destructive agent.

My examination concluded and my decision made, we recommenced the
ascent. First came a steep snow-slope which we climbed diagonally to the
left. The snow was hard frozen and vigorous kicking was neces-sary.
Curiously enough, step-kicking tends to make the feet colder rather than
warmer, possibly because the vibration deadens the toes. I notice that the

same thing happens to the hands when holding the vibrating wheel of a
badly sprung motor-car. For this reason, and because the work of kicking in
hard snow is tiring, I varied the work by cutting with the axe.

We had not advanced far when the mist closed in, this time more densely
than before. Nothing saps the energy more quickly than steamy mist at a
high alti-tude. The sun was scarcely visible, yet its heat was suffocating and
the absence of a breeze contributed to our inertia. We were experiencing
glacier lassitude, often referred to in connection with Himalayan
moun-taineering, but which may be experienced on lower snow-mountains
such as Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa. The physical cause is said to be an
excess of water-vapour in the atmosphere, but the mental factor enters into it
also, for there is nothing more boring or fatiguing than climbing a long
snow-slope in a mist. I began to go slower and slower and to breathe more
and more heavily; and my legs were tired, a dead weight of tiredness due no
doubt to my having kicked or cut every step since leaving the camp.

At this critical juncture, the mists again parted. We had been climbing for
over an hour and traversing to the left at the same time, and 1 had
anticipated seeing the ice-wall well to our right and but little above our level.
Far from it. As the sluggish mists slowly and reluctantly released their hold,
it loomed out like a vast sea-cliff stretching to right and left as far as we
could see and still a long and weary way above us. I had under-estimated the
scale of the face and it seemed that we were beaten; time and fatigue had
tipped the scale against us. I turned to Wangdi to give the order to retreat,
but at sight of the grim-visaged little man standing there imperturbable in his
steps, as though his whole life had been spent in climbing arduous snow
slopes, the words on my lips changed themselves into:

“Go ahead, and take a turn at the leading.” I spoke in English, but Wangdi
understood. He was at the end of the rope and it was only necessary to
reverse the order.

There is nothing Wangdi likes better than leading on a mountain, for he is
a leader, with the instincts of leadership, and he went at the slope with a
tireless energy which, if not rhythmical, was nevertheless inspiring to watch.
It was foolish of me not to have made him lead before, and I at once realised
the difference between making steps and walking up steps already made.
Quickly my energy returned to me, and with it hope and optimism. Fatigue
alone had made the ice-wall seem far away; actually it was not more than
300 feet above us and we were soon beneath it, close to its eastern-most
extremity. To outflank it we had to climb round a steep comer to the left, the
approach to which involved the only really dangerous climbing we met with

during the whole ascent. Some fifty yards from the comer a piece of the wall
had become partly detached, forming a flake of ice about 100 feet high,
weighing several hundred tons, which overhung and threatened the route for
about thirty yards. Had we traversed the slope some distance below the foot
of the wall, we should have been out of the danger zone quickly, as here the
angle was less steep than it was immediately beneath the wall, but Wangdi,
never a good route-finder, chose a more difficult line at the base of the flake
where steps had to be cut. I did not notice what he was doing until it was too
late, as I was still recovering from my fatigue at the rear of the rope. Not that
it made much difference, for it meant that we were only two or three minutes
longer in the danger zone; yet two or three minutes when the sun is
threatening to dis-lodge a piece of ice the size and weight of a fortress wall
can seem an unconscionably long time, and I was heartily glad when we
were out of range.

The comer was .steep and icy and was intersected horizontally by an
awkward little crevasse with a vertical upper lip, so I went ahead again and,
well belayed by the rope round Nurbu’s ice-axe, traversed to the left, then
made straight up to the crevasse, cutting steps all the way. I got up at last
after some heavy work and was presently joined by my companions. We had
turned the ice-wall, the cmx of the ascent,

An unbroken but steep snow-slope leading up to the crest of the north-east
ridge now remained to be climbed. The snow here was much softer than the
snow beneath the ice-wall, as it had been exposed to greater cold, and at
every step we went in half-way to the knees, so that even the indomitable
Wangdi had to halt and puff for breath every three or four paces. Meanwhile,
I kept a sharp look out for wind-slab, but presently came to the conclusion
that the slope was unlikely to avalanche, owing principally to the fact that
the snow was not of the same consistency throughout.

Nevertheless, it was a relief when the slope steepened into a face of well-
compacted neve step-cutting was arduous work, but it was consoling to
know that an avalanche could not possibly occur. Maybe, I was over-anxious
as to avalanches; though I have never been in an avalanche, except for a very
minor slide of wet snow during the Kamet Expedition, I have a profound
respect for Himalayan snow, which I have always regarded as far more
dangerous and less easy to estimate than Alpine snow. Such snow must, of
course, observe the same laws as Alpine snow, but the conditions in which it
exists are extreme and the changes of temperature, due to the greater height
of the sun and colder nights, more variable than in the Alps. It behoves the

mountaineer, therefore, always to proceed with the utmost caution, and
pessimism is better than optimism when climbing on it.

The slope seemed interminable but at length the angle eased off and with
great relief we stood at last on the crest of the north-east ridge. This was
comfortably broad and inclined at a moderate angle, and moving very
slowly, for we were now very tired, we tramped along it. Ahead of us the
ridge rose to a point. We could see nothing higher; surely this must be the
summit ? It was not. As we toiled up to it, we saw beyond, a long and weary
way beyond, another point.

Disgusted, we slumped down into the snow, breathing heavily, then, a
minute later, I glanced cautiously over my shoulder; the summit was not
nearly as far away as we had supposed. Distance and fatigue are inseparable
at high altitudes. Nothing can appear more remote and inaccessible that the
summit of Mount Everest seen by an exhausted climber from a point only
1,000 feet below it, but at 28,000 feet the climber is permanently weary and
rest has little effect on him or on his estimation of distance.

We heaved ourselves to our feet and recommenced the ascent; but we had
not preceded more than a few yards when a strong wind suddenly rose. So
bitter and penetrating was it that we halted to huddle on every stitch of spare
clothing, gloves and Balaclava helmets; thus muffled up we continued
slowly to advance along the ridge, which had now attained to the quality and
dimensions of a nightmare ridge along which the mountaineer is doomed to
climb without ever getting to the end.

During the past hour the clouds had vanished from the immediate vicinity
of Nilgiri Parbat, and we became dimly aware of a superb vista extending in
all directions. Hustled and blasted by the wind, we toiled on, but the
mountain had one more surprise in store. As with leaden legs we breasted
the top we had seen, once again it sprang up before us. But this time there
was no mistake; the ridge stretched almost level for perhaps 200 yards, then
suddenly narrowed into a blade, which swept upwards in a shining curve to
end in a perfect point.

Once more we plumped down in the snow for a rest and once more we
heaved ourselves to our feet and continued towards our goal. But there was
now a different feeling — that snowy triangle lifting with mathe-matical
exactitude into the blue was assuredly the summit.

We came to the point where the ridge narrowed and steepened. It was
impossible to traverse a crest so delicate and thin, so driving in our ice-axes
and shuffling along sideways, with toes dug well in at every step, we

advanced one by one. Thus we came to the summit. There was room on it
for but one of us at a time. I well remember standing in the snow with my
arms resting on it while surveying for a few moments a marvellous
panorama. My memory is of an isolation and height comparable with far
higher summits, for Nilgiri Parbat, like the Matterhorn, stands alone and
there is no peak exceeding it in height within three or four miles. The
atmosphere that day, probably because of an excess of water-vapour, was
blue; everything was blue, the sky profoundly blue, the hills, the shadows
and the dis-tances. In the north, storm clouds were banked up along the edge
of Tibet and beneath them I could see the Tibetan plateau, and that was blue
and level like an ocean, except for one minute point of white bisecting the
horizon. The same ridiculous thought occurred simultaneously to Wangdi
and me, but Wangdi was the first to voice it. “Everest.” And indeed the
peak, which cannot have been less than 200 miles distant, bore a strange
resemblance to Everest.

The wind was blowing hard across the ridge a few feet below the summit,
but the summit itself was windless. In this oasis of calm we would willingly
have lingered, but there was a long descent before us with the possibility of
bad snow. Five minutes we spent on that fragile, unearthly crest, the most
beautiful mountain-top I have ever visited, then began the descent.

Now that the need to lever our tired bodies’ uphill was done with we
could appreciate the splendours on either hand: the great precipice which
falls to the south and the walls of ice leaning over to the north, seeming
almost to overhang the Banke Glacier thousands of feet beneath. The wind
was no longer a tormentor and the sun smiled kindly as we strolled along the
ridge, and on either side of our splendid path peaks and clouds glowed
radiantly in the afternoon sun with an unsubstantial, ethereal beauty. We trod
the very parapet of heaven.

And so, at length, the snow-slopes. The upper snow was unaltered, the
lower snow softened by the sun, which was now shining on the ice-wall. We
hurried past the lurching flake and made all haste to the plateau. Once Nurbu
slipped — he was very tired — but Wangdi and I drove in our axes and
stopped him before he had slid more than a few feet. On the edge of the
plateau we found some rocks with a small trickle of water and I filled my
cup again and again, for we were all terribly thirsty.

After a short rest, we traversed the ridge and descended the gully, and
here we had a foretaste of what to expect lower down. On the way up we had
cut steps, but now we sank almost to our knees into soft wet snow. With the
possibility of an avalanche in my mind, I insisted on every precaution, and

we descended one at a time keeping as close to the rocks as possible. The
snow on the slopes below still retained a crust which would bear for a step or
two if trodden very gently; then it broke, and in we would go, knee-deep and
often thigh-deep. We had not realised before this how tired we were, but the
climb of 300 feet to the crest of the buttress was the hardest work of the day.
Wangdi and I took turns at leading, but even Wangdi’s amazing strength was
on the wane, and he was as glad as I to relinquish the lead after a few
minutes’ ploughing through the waterlogged snow. The snow was even
softer on the buttress crest, indeed so soft that, as it could hardly become
worse. We halted for half an hour on some sun-warmed rocks where Wangdi
and Nurbu at last condescended to eat something, while I wrung out and
attempted to dry my socks, which as usual had become sopping wet.

The sun was fast declining when we set off again. Wangdi wanted to
descend the slope up which we had come from the bergschrund, and would
not believe me when I told him it was dangerous, so, as an illustration, I
rolled a snowball down it. In a yard or two this had attained to the
dimensions of a cart-wheel, the weight of which set a wedge of snow in
movement. The wedge widened and widened and within a second or two a
slice of the slope fifty yards wide was sliding down to the bergschrund in a
formidable ‘avalanche, leaving bare ice in its wake. Wangdi was suitably
impressed, at least I hope he was, and made no demur about descend-ing the
rock-ridge to one side of the slope. This was easy until we came to the
bergschrund, above which it broke off in a steep little wall. But the rocks
were not as difficult as they looked, and soon Wangdi, whom Nurbu and I
let down on the full length of the rope, had found a bridge over the rift. That
was the last difficulty, and the ridge and slopes to the glacier proved so easy
that we were able to glissade part of the way.

As we walked across the little plateau above the ice-fall, the shadows
were creeping up the cliffs and seracs with the stealthy haste of sub-tropical
night, but above and around was a rampart of sunlight, whence the great
peak we had climbed stood up from a labyrinth of ice to cut a glowing
wedge in the darkening blue.

At 7 p.m. we were welcomed by Pasang, who had thoughtfully prepared
some tea. We could drink indefinitely, but none of us could eat; neither
could we sleep, we were too tired, and hours later I lay awake going over in
my mind the events of the day. We had climbed nearly 7,000 feet up a peak
which remains unique in my recollection for its beauty and interest, indeed
the finest snow and ice-peak I have ever climbed. Much that is worth while
in life had been packed into the space of thirteen hours, but from all that I

remember the summit stands pre-eminent and I can picture it as though it
were yesterday, simple, beautiful and serene in the sunlight, the perfect
summit of the mountaineer’s dreams.

CHAPTER XVII
RATABAN

AFTER our exertions on Nilgiri Parbat, we arrived tired at the base camp
on July 20th : there I slept the clock round, that deep refreshing sleep that
comes after the first effects of exceptional exertion have worn off. July 2ist
was the date that Peter Oliver was to join me, but he had written that he
would probably be a day late. However, I derided to descend the valley a
short dis-tance to meet him in case he should be up to time.

Various flowers had put in an appearance during the past few days. Near
the stream was growing a campion (Silene tennis] and another plant very
similar in appearance which turned out to be a lychnis (L. apetala] with a
Chinese-lantem-like flower pendant on a thin stalk, whilst a creeping
bellwort (Codonopsis rotundifolia) was twining itself about the stalks of
large plants.

The anemones were past their prime, but a multitude of geraniums,
delphiniums, polemot/iums, potentilias and many-smaller flowers filled my
garden, as I had come to look upon it, with glowing colours.

It was a perfect morning as Nurbu and I strolled over the meadows.
Arriving at the lower end of the gorge we scrambled up to the right through
dense undergrowth, then over a series of striated slabs until we were able to
see far down the valley. A little ledge formed an ideal belvedere and we
spent three delightful hours basking in the sun and lazily watching the slow
lights and shadows as the clouds passed.

Rhubarb grew near by and Nurbu munched away whilst I photographed a
yellow shrubby potentilla (P. fruticosa) which grew in cracks and crannies
of the neighbouring crags. A botanical miracle of high mountains is the
manner in which every vestige of decay is seized upon by the roots of plants.
Presumably birds have much to do with the distribution of seed, but the
strong upward rising air-currents from the valleys must play a major part in
clothing the crags and mountain-sides and account for the presence of
flowers amid the eternal snows far from alp land and meadow. The study of
air-currents and plant distribution in the Himalayas should disclose some
interesting facts.

As Peter did not put in an appearance we returned to camp where I spent
the remainder of the day attend-ing to my pressed specimens, some of which
had been affected by the monsoon damp. After so many delightful weeks, I
felt almost depressed at the thought of leaving the Valley of Flowers, for I
had discovered a never-ending delight in the growth of the marvellous
garden that surrounded me. There are many virtues in wandering about the
Himalayas, but to me the ideal life will always be a flowerful country where
I can pitch my camp and settle down to observe all that happens about me.
To the botanist there is a realm of interest and potential exploration in half a
mile of hillside. I had not realised this before, and I remember with regret
how often I hastened unseeing through valleys, my eyes fixed on the hilltops
when at my feet was lying one half of interest and beauty.

Peter arrived next morning, having accomplished the march from
Ranikhet in nine days. He had brought with him two Darjeeling men, in
addition to the Dotiais who had carried his heavy baggage. These were Tse
Tendrup, a Tibetan, and Ang Bao, a Sherpa. Ang Bao (or “Babu” as his
comrades called him) I remem-bered well, as he had carried my
photographic apparatus during the 1936 Mount Everest Expedition. He was
the only Sherpa of the party and this was to his disadvantage, for though the
Sherpas of the Sola Khombu Valley in Nepal are closely related to the
Tibetans and are Buddhists by religion, there is nevertheless a subtle
difference. The Sherpas are Tibetans who have emi-grated from Tibet into
the fertile valleys of northern Nepal close to the southernmost flanks of
Everest. They are an exceptionally hardy race and natural mountaineers who
have put up a magnificent showing on Everest and other Himalayan
expeditions, but it is possible that the Tibetan, wedded to his bleak
windswept plains, scorns these emigrants Jo warmer and pleasanter climes.

It may be that Ang Bao’s youth, for he was little more than a boy, and
natural willingness and good nature, made him the hewer of wood and
drawer of water of the party; at all events the gulf between him and the
Tibetans was manifest, and on more than one occasion we had to interfere to
prevent the wholly unscrupulous Wangdi from saddling him with more than
a fair share of work.

He was a little fellow with a round boyish face and somewhat sly eyes;
but he was not in the least sly, and it was merely an ingrained diffidence and
nervous-ness that cause him to falter in his gaze and look uneasily about
him. He was not a great mountaineer, being naturally timid and clumsy, but
he was a trier and a sticker to the nth degree. In one way he scored heavily
over his companions, for he had acquired, probably at Ranikhet, a brand-

new pair of khaki riding breeches. They were fearfully tight at the knees and
must have caused him prolonged suffering when march-ing or climbing, but
if they did he never gave a sign, and whatever the menial tasks foisted upon
him or the leg-pulls he had to endure, there is no doubt that these breeches
and their obvious superiority over all other garments possessed by the party
preserved in him .a feeling of superiority which stood him in good stead on
many trying occasions.

Tse Tendrup I find difficult to describe, for he was one of those men who
psychologically and physically are somehow always in the background. In a
word he was unobtrusive. You could not imagine him being the focal point
of a row or being riotously drunk or being unconventional in the smallest
particular. He did his work well, but somehow one never thought about his
doing it: I suppose it was because he did it well. He was a fair mountaineer,
not rankly bad like Pasang or brilliantly good like Wangdi. Everything that
he did was fair; he gave no trouble; he commanded no especial praise. Had
he been bom a European he might have lived in a suburb and travelled
up to “Town” by train every day, worked at the same office, lunched at the
same restaurant, and spent his fort-night’s holiday at the same place, playing
golf at the same handicap. It is unusual to write of a Tibetan thus, for most
people associate Tibet with strange and weird practices, and think of
Tibetans as an altogether exciting not to say uncanny race. But I suppose
there are ordinary conventional Tibetans just as there are ordinary
conventional Englishmen and Tse Tendmp was one of them.

I have hesitated to describe my companion because a hide-bound
convention which surrounds mountaineering literature, perhaps more so than
the literature of any other subject under the sun, decrees that your
companion on a mountain shall remain only a name, a mere cipher “which
climbs to the summit and back again. On this occasion, however, I am going
to violate convention, not to say tradition.

I have accompanied Peter Oliver in the Alps and on Mount Everest. My
most vivid memory is of climbing behind him while he cut or kicked steps
up the slopes of the North Col in 1936. I remember thinking at the time that
here was a man endowed with the physique and spirit of a George Leigh-
Mallory. There was the same restless force and fine attunement of the
nervous senses to the work in hand, the same exercising of imaginative and
artistic qualities, always a surer passport to success in mountaineering and
exploration than brute force. I have not the slightest doubt that many have
eyed his spare frame, as they have eyed mine, disparagingly, and wondered
why something beefier and stronger could not be found for Everest, for the

old traditions die hard and to the uninitiated the moun-taineer is broad,
strong and heavy, with the bunched and knotted muscles of a Sandow, and if
he be naturally endowed with a beard of Assyrian luxuriance so much the
better. It is hateful to debunk such cherished traditions, but the fact is it is the
lean, spare man who climbs best. Lastly, Peter is a genuine lover of the
mountains and on such the mountains confers their greatest gifts.

That evening we discussed plans. Our main object-ive was the Mana
Peak, 23,860 feet. This is a near neighbour of Kamet and during the Kamet
Expedition it had been the most striking peak of any in view. Now that
Nanda Devi had been ascended by the Anglo-American Expedition, the
Mana Peak was the highest unsealed peak in the Garhwal Himalayas with
the exception of the East and West Ibi Gamin, which form a part of the
Kamet massif and are dull-looking, some-what shapeless mountains. Bat
height alone did not influence our decision; the Mana Peak is an
out-standingly fine mountain, a great pyramid of red granite splendid to look
up from all directions and conspicuous even from Ranikhet, some 100 miles
dis-tant. It is a difficult peak too, not only because of its steepness but
because of the complex nature of the ridges and glaciers surrounding it. In
1931 it was agreed that to climb it from the East Kamet Glacier would
involve an expedition with a greater number of camps than were required for
Kamet and that the ascent from this direction would be difficult, perhaps
impossible. The remaining approaches are from the west, south and east, and
of these that from the west, from the Saraswati Valley to the north of
Badrinath and Mana, was evidently steep and intricate, whilst the report of
members of the Kamet Expedition, who had explored some distance up the
Banke Glacier to the south-east of the mountain, was scarcely encouraging.

Some weeks previously, however, I had received a very interesting letter
from Lieut. R. A. Gardiner of the Survey of India, who had been surveying
in the Banke Glacier area. He wrote that he had discovered a glacier system
between the East Kamet and Banke Glaciers, of which the old map gave no
indication, consisting in its uppermost portion of a series of snow-fields
forming what was virtually a plateau some six miles in length. Though he
had not visited the western-most snow-fields he had climbed to a height of
20,000 feet on the ridge between the plateau and the East Kamet Glacier
and was of the opinion that if three peaks on this ridge, of 21,400 feet,
22,481 feet and 22,892 feet, could be outflanked from the plateau and the
east ridge of the mountain reached, the summit should prove accessible.
We decided, therefore, to follow his suggestion and first of all attempt the
moun-tain from this direction, to do which it was necessary to cross the

Bhyundar Pass, 16,688 feet, at the head of the Bhyundar Valley, and
establish a base camp in the Banke Valley at about 14,000 feet. This plan,
inci-dentally, would enable us to diverge en route to the snow col I had
already visited and attempt the ascent of Rataban, an unwise suggestion on
my part because Peter had only recently been at sea-level and Rataban is a
difficult mountain, 20,23 1 feet high, not an ideal training expedition for an
un-acclimatised mountaineer. Apart from this last scheme the proposed visit
to the Banke Plateau had the advantage that, even if we failed to climb the
Mana Peak, there were some fine and probably accessible peaks in the
vicinity of the plateau.

We estimated that we should require between two and three weeks’ food,
some of which, such as fresh meat and vegetables and coolie food, could be
obtained from the village of Gamsali, which is situated at the junction of the
Banke and Dhauli Valleys. With only five porters at our disposal, we had to
jettison every unessential, with the exception of cameras and films, which I
for one regard as essentials in mountaineering and exploration. It must,
however, be added that some whisky which Peter had brought with him was
also translated into the same category.

The smallness of our party was dictated by the cost of porterage. Also a
small party accompanied by first-rate Sherpa or Bhotia porters is the
superior of a large party, even on the greater peaks of the Himalayas, by
virtue of its mobility and power to change plans, at a moment’s notice, thus
seizing its opportunities without delay. Shipton is the high priest of the small
Hima-layan party, and certainly his expedition with H. W. Tilman in 1934 in
the same district was an example of how much may be accomplished.

The flurry of packing and sorting over, the Dotials were sent off down the
valley, and the Darjeeling men dispatched with the first relay of loads with
instructions to dump them somewhere near the place where I had camped
previously below the Bhyundar Pass, leaving Peter and myself to enjoy a
lazy afternoon. The men were late in returning, so late that we became
anxious for their safety, and went out to meet them. It was a pitchy night, but
they arrived at last, having found the glacier very wearisome to negotiate
owing to the snow having melted, exposing moraines and ice.

Next morning we left with the remainder of the loads. Despite the first
relay, there was enough over to necessitate everyone carrying a heavy
burden. I have never taken kindly to load-carrying in the Himalayas and
prefer to leave it to men who are used to it and think no more of 60 lbs. than
I would of a day’s food and equipment in the Alps. In a word, I prefer
comfort to discomfort whenever possible. Hugh Ruttledge summed me up

during the 1933 Everest Expedition when he called me a “blooming
sybarite,” only he did not use the word “blooming.” No doubt I am, though I
do not altogether fancy one dictionary definition of sybarite, “An effeminate
voluptuary.” In the present instance I was consoled to some extent by some
pointed remarks of Peter’s on the subject of his own load. It is always
comforting to know that others are suffering too.

It was brilliantly sunny when we left the base camp, but within two hours
clouds had formed and a drizzling rain set in. The porters had dumped their
loads at the foot of the slopes leading to the Bhyundar Pass and not at the old
camping site, as they said that there was now no water there. As we were
very damp outside we decided to counterbalance this by becoming equally
damp inside, so we sat under a boulder and consumed an appreciable portion
of the necessity already men-tioned. The effect of this upon me was to make
me sing. Fortunately no avalanche occurred.

Towards sunset the rain stopped and the mists cleared, revealing the rocky
pile of Nilgiri Parbat, glowing in a green sky at a seemingly impossible
height above us.

Then Rataban appeared over the ragged lip of the nearby ice-fall, but it
was on the former peak that the sun lingered, and long after dusk had fallen
and the stars brightened it continued to shine, at first gold, then silver, then
miraculously gold again, as though the earth had reversed its rotation for a
few minutes.

The following morning was warm and calm arid we made rapid progress
to the Bhyundar Pass, finding it unnecessary to rope for any part of the way.
Just below the last gentle slope leading to it, we discovered a pleasant place
which needed little preparation in order to pitch the tents. There were
numerous flowers in the vicinity, including a yellow corydatis (C.
Govaniana) with slender feathery foliage, yellow androsaces and a number
of golden-brown sedums.

In the late afternoon there was a heavy hailstorm accompanied by thunder.
Thunderstorms arc frequent in the foothills in the Himalayas, but seldom
occur among the high mountains.

The weather did not recover its good humour during the night and the
following morning was misty and grey. We waited some time for an
improvement, but as this did not materialise set off to the snow col, taking
with us Wangdi, Pasang, Tewang and Tse Tendrup and leaving Nurbu and
Ang Bao to bring up the re-maining loads from the lower camp. We had not
gone far before Tewang began to show evident signs of fatigue. Since I

arrived in the Bhyundar Valley, he had had little or no exercise and I thought
he was merely out of training, but when we got to the ice-fall he suddenly
collapsed and we then realised that he must be in a bad way to judge from
the greenish colour of his face and his racing pulse. There was nothing for it
but to send him back to the camp escorted by Wangdi and Pasang, while we
carried on with Tse Tendrup.

The ascent was complicated by mist and drizzling snow, whilst the col,
when at length we reached it, was bleak and bitterly cold with a mixture of
hail and snow, carried along by a strong wind rushing across it. The three of
us crowded into the single tent we had brought until Wangdi and Pasang
arrived with the remaining tent and equipment, when we were able to warm
our chilled bodies with a hot drink.

It was a miserable afternoon. We lay side by side in our sleeping-bags in
our little Meade tent which measured approximately six and a half feet in
length and four feet in breadth, whilst the wind and snow drove furiously at
the camp. The porters fared worse than we, as their tent leaked, wetting their
sleeping-bags. This tent, which was strongly made and of thick material, had
served its turn on Kamet, but as it was evidently unfit for further use at high
altitudes we decided to scrap it at the first opportunity. Tents, like wind-
proof clothing, need to be replaced every season in the Himalayas, for the
intensely powerful sun at high altitudes quickly damages canvas, whilst
rapidly alter-nating heat and cold, dampness and dryness, put a considerable
strain on any finely woven material.

At sundown, to our relief, the weather moderated and we were able to
enjoy some pemmican soup cooked over a “Primus.” After my luxurious
days and nights in the Bhyundar Valley I cannot say I took kindly to sharing
a tent, even with a boon companion, for there are certain penalties and
restrictions attached to this: one cannot, for instance, light a candle in the
middle of the night and charm away some sleepless hours with a book,
whilst kicking or tossing about is regarded unsympathetically; but thank
heavens for one thing, neither of us snored.

The eastern sky was clear at dawn, but heavy clouds were massing over
the Alaknanda Valley and the Badrinath Peaks. However, there was no
immediate reason why we should not attempt the ascent of Rata-ban, the
summit of which cannot be more than 2,500 feet above the col. With the
prospect of some difficult climbing and in all probability iced rocks it was
inad-visable to start too early and we did not leave the camp until eight
o’clock, when the weather was excellent.

As already mentioned, the direct ascent of the north ridge from the snow
col is impracticable, or at all events desperately difficult, and the one
possibility of climbing the mountain from this direction is to force a route to
the upper part of the ridge by one or other of a series of rock ribs no the
steep north-west face. With this end in view we traversed more or less
hori-zontally from the camp, making for a rib which I had previously
decided, when examining the peak, was the most likely line of attack. To
gain this we crossed a bergsckrund, which offered little difficulty, then
climbed diagonally over a steep slope of well-frozen snow. The rib to begin
with was not particularly difficult and the rock, a granite material, was firm
and delightful to climb, but it was slow going on the whole and for the most
part we could move only one at a time.

The ridge ended against a rock band, perhaps 200 feet high and slanting
from west to east across the face of the mountain. The rocks were sheer,
even overhang-ing, and their yellow and red edges bit brutally into the sky.
The one possibility of climbing them was to the right; once above the band a
minor rib should lead up to the crest of the north ridge above the impas-sable
section whence the climbing lies over snow to the summit. It was a difficult
and exposed traverse. Mov-ing one at a time and belaying carefully at every
rope length, we edged along a series of minute ledges until we came to a
well-defined chimney. This we attempted to climb, but it was altogether too
strenuous, whilst an overhang at the top demanded a pull on the arms on to
unknown and doubtful ground, a pull which would be unjustifiable at any
altitude let alone at nearly 20,000 feet. The alternative was to cross the
chimney and continue the traverse past a comer. It was an awkward
movement and meant edging along in the position of a man cmcified.
Thence after a steep climb we came to an ill-defined ridge of snow and rock
that appeared to lead continuously to the crest of the north ridge. The
greatest difficulty had been overcome and it now remained to be seen
whether there was sufficient time to reach the summit and return.

As Peter followed round the comer I noticed that he was climbing slowly
and with increasing effort. It was no surprise to me therefore, when he
announced that he was feeling very tired and that he did not think he would
be able to continue if the difficulties persisted. He suggested, however, that I
should carry on for another rope length to determine whether we could reach
the ridge without great difficulty, for once on it he felt that he might be able
to continue to the summit should it prove merely a snow-plug. I followed his
suggestion, but merely with the idea of prospecting the route for a future

occasion,’ as I knew there was no justification for continuing in such
circumstances and, incidentally, we were climbing for pleasure.

After kicking steps up steep snow, and climbing an awkward rock pitch, I
saw from the crest of the latter that the rib we were on continued to the north
ridge of the mountain and that while there were no insuper-able obstacles the
difficulties were considerable. Having noted this, I returned to Peter and we
rested for a few minutes. It was disappointing to fail when the peak was
almost within our grasp, but it was no fault of Peter’s; the fault was mine,
and mine alone. I do not suppose any mountaineer has tackled such
diffi-culties at a similar altitude within a fortnight of being at sea-level, and
it was foolish of me to suggest the climb, though in my own defence I must
state that I had not for a moment anticipated such difficulties as we had
encountered. As it was, Peter had put up a magnificent performance in
reaching a height of about 19,500 feet after an outstandingly difficult and
exacting climb.

Providence walks in many guises. As we slowly descended the sun
vanished in a chaos of leaden vapour and within half an hour snow was
falling heavily. Had this storm overtaken us near the summit we should have
been hard put to it to retreat safely; as it was the snow filled the interstices -
of the rocks of the lower rib and rendered the climbing unpleasant, not to say
difficult.

When ascending a peak, the mountaineer tends to underestimate the
steepness of the climbing, and his mind, particularly when he is on new and
intricate ground is occupied with the technical details of his craft, but during
the descent he is better able to appreciate the steepness and grandeur of a
mountainside. The present instance was no exception, and I do not believe
either of us realised until we descended the formidable nature of the face we
had climbed. Peter said that it was the hardest and steepest climb he had
done in the Himalayas.

The hour or two of warm and sunny weather we had enjoyed during the
ascent had softened the snow on the slope by which we had ascended to the
rib, and as there was ice below it, to have descended safely would have
meant much step-cutting. We abandoned it, therefore, in favour of
continuing down the rib. This last part of the descent was disagreeable, for
the rocks were not only running with slush and water, but shaley and loose
into the bargain. Furthermore, we were wet and cold and the rope had
become exasperatingly stiff and sodden with water. To Peter, who was
feeling very tired, it must have been a very trying descent, but he gave no

hint of this and was a pillar of strength on more than one awkward slope
where everything was loose and there were no belays for the rope.

As we neared the foot of the rib, we heard distant shouts from the porters
intended to guide us to the camp through the snowstorm. The rib, which had
seemed interminable, ended at last, and to our great relief we were able to
cross the bergschrund without difficulty. Thenceforward we ploughed
through the soft snow of the glacier and preceded by loud and oft-reiterated
demands for chha (tea) eventually reached the camp, soaked and bedraggled.

It had been a hard not to say anxious climb and we were thankful to be off
the mountain. We agreed as we poured steaming tea into our chilled bodies
that everything had worked out for the best. Nothing was to be gained by
prolonging our stay, especially as the snow col formed a natural funnel for
every wind that blew, and after a meal we packed up the wet tents and
hastened down to the camp near the Bhyundar Pass.

Thus ended my second attempt to climb Rataban. It may be that the
mountain is more easily accessible from the south or east, though from what
I have seen this appears very questionable, but if it is ever my fortune to
attempt it again I should follow the same route ; although very steep and
difficult it is, I am convinced, entirely practicable and will afford a
magnificent climb to the summit of this grand peak.

CHAPTER XVIII
THE BANKE PLATEAU

AFTER our unsuccessful attempt to climb Rataban we proceeded to carry
out the next part of our programme, and it was decided to cross the
Bhyundar Pass without delay and pitch a base camp in the Banke Valley
from which to push up a series of, camps on to the plateau whence we hoped
to attempt the ascent of the Mana Peak.

When we returned to our camp near the Bhyundar Pass we found that
Tewang had not recovered from his indisposition and was now complaining
of a pain in his chest. I took his temperature and was aghast to find it only 95
‘2°. He must be seriously ill if not at death’s door. To make certain, I took it
again and the laggard mercury rose to normal. This little medical detail
satisfactorily settled, the patient was ordered to remain in his sleeping-bag
and the onerous task of cooking was handed over to Ang Bao.

All the stores were now at the camp. We had planned to relay them over
the Bhyundar Pass into the Banke Valley, but the men were very averse to

this as they did not want to return to the pass, and next morning Wangdi said
that they would prefer to carry double loads. This meant well over 100 lbs.
per man ; it also meant that Peter and I had to carry as much as we could
manage and we eventually set off with at least 60 lbs. apiece.

The passage of the Bhyundar Pass is not difficult, but care is necessary
when descending the ice-fall on the east side. Here Wangdi attempted, as
usual, to make a better route than we, and proceeded to lead the men across a
dangerous ice-slope seamed with crevasses arid loaded with loose stones.
We shouted to him to return and follow our route, which he eventually did,
and when he came up with us Peter gave him a dressing down, which I fear
was entirely without effect as Wangdi is constitutionally unable to
differentiate between safety and danger on a mountain.

Below the ice-fall we descended a slope of screes where we came across a
beautiful delphinium (D. densiflorum) growing in close-packed spires of
flowers not more than a foot high. How it lodged in this desolate situation
with nothing but stones to root in is a mystery.

From the screes a steep snow-slope led down to the glacier well below the
ice-fall where, as was only to be expected, Pasang did his inevitable pas
seal, or his famous imitation of a sack of coals sliding down a chute into a
cellar. Once on the glacier we had a dull and fatiguing trudge over ice and
moraines to its junction with the Banke Glacier. Here there was a marked
change in scenery. The Bhyundar Valley is moist and fertile, but the Banke
Valley is drier, stonier and barer, and its ochre-coloured rock reminds the
mountaineer that he is only a few miles south of the main Himalayan
watershed and the Tibetan border. Without a doubt it receives much less rain
than the Bhyundar Valley, the reason being that the latter runs from south-
west to north-east and is linked with the Alaknanda Valley, which forms a
natural channel for the monsoon air current, whereas the Banke Valley runs
east-south-east to west-north-west and is linked with the upper part of the
Dhauli Valley, into which the monsoon current does not penetrate with the
same power that it does into the Alaknanda Valley. I ex-pected, therefore, to
find a less luxuriant plant life and one characteristic of a drier climate.

The Banke Glacier, like the majority of the main Himalayan ice-streams,
is covered in moraines for the greater part of its length and presents a dreary
but not unimpressive spectacle of mountain decay. We followed to begin
with a side moraine of the glacier we had descended, a delightful bank
forming a home for in-numerable potentillas, androsaces, saxifrages and
sedums. I found nothing new until I came to some little rosettes of fleshy
leaves, from the centre of which flower shoots were emerging, which I knew

must be a house-leek (Sempervivum mucronatum), I selected a specimen for
my press, and so potent was the power locked up in this little plant that it
continued to send out its flower shoot for a full two or three more inches in
spite of the weight and pressure applied to it.

It was a tedious crossing of the glacier, over innumer-able mounds of
moraines, some of them fully 1 00 feet high, but it was made interesting by
the plants which grew even in this barren wilderness of shattered rock, and I
came upon many allardias, both the large and small varieties, their pink
flowers warm and cosy amid silver cotton-wool-like foliage.

By the time we had reached the other side of the glacier our loads seemed
even heavier than before, and we were thankful to pitch the base camp on a
shelf at about 14,000 feet, between two shepherds’ bivouacs known as Thur
Udiar and Eri Udiar (Cold Cave). There was plenty of fuel in the shape of
juniper bushes close at hand, and it was altogether a delightful spot as the
ridge immediately above the camp formed a natural rock garden.

Soon after our arrival a shepherd, Alam Singh by name, appeared with the
remains of two sheep which he explained had been killed by a rockfall. As
the meat appeared quite fresh we purchased it and after-wards, having
discovered that he had an assistant to mind his flocks in his absence, sent
him down the valley to Gamsali to purchase vegetables and, if possible,
milk.

Tewang, unfortunately, was still unwell, and once again the cooking fell
upon Ang Bao, who, unexpectedly, proved capable of turning out excellent
chupatties. As a rule I find this particular form of unleavened bread
exceedingly indigestible and for that reason had pro-vided myself with
biscuits for my stay in the Bhyundar Valley, but it was now necessary to live
as far as possible off the country. I think it was General Bruce who once
remarked that chupatties made of native flour acted like sand-paper on the
inside, though whether he intended this eulogistically or as a warning I did
not discover. At all events I have never eaten sand-paper, so am not in a
position to judge. The General had visited Garhwal in 1907, accompanied by
Dr. T. G. Longstaff and the late A. L. Mumm, and his name is legendary
along the Himalayas, particularly among the Gurkhas. In such veneration is
he regarded that a story is told of an old lady of Mana who asked to be
allowed to drink water he had washed in, as by so doing she would acquire
merit and be cured of her various ailments.

Next day was necessarily a rest day, for we had worked hard, and it was
only fair to the porters after their great effort. To save time on the morrow,

when we hoped to push the first of our camps up towards the Banke Plateau,
I spent the afternoon reconnoitring the approach.

Lieut. Gardiner had written that the only practicable route to the plateau
lay to the east of Peak 19,212 feet, climbed by Eric Shipton in 1931. The
plateau is cunningly concealed,, and the only indication that an extensive
glacier system exists to the north of the Banke Glacier is afforded by a steep
and broken ice-fall which descends to join the glacier. Thus it is easily
under-standable why no one had previously suspected the existence of the
plateau. Gardiner had given no exact details as to the route to be followed,
but from the camp it appeared as though this must He to one side or the
other of a steep and narrow gorge. The crags immediately above the camp
were disagreeably loose and shaley, so I climbed the slope to the west of the
gorge, halting on the way to admire a large white anemone with a golden
centre (A. rupicold) which covered the hillside in its millions. The slope
ended in a ridge clad in juniper against the dark foliage of which galaxies of
flowers, potentlllas, androsaces, anemones, polygonums and geraniums
made brilliant splashes of colour.

From this point I was forced into the upper part of the narrow and wall-
sided gorge and, following a little break across the cliffs, was presently able
to make my way almost directly upwards over a series of awkwardly dipping
slabs, which were broken at about two-thirds of their height by a small wall.

There were good hand-holds and I was soon up, emerging from the gorge
on to a beautiful little alp, ablaze with flowers, of which geraniums,
potentillas and polygonums formed the majority. But the rock gardener must
needs turn from such flamboyant beauty to the humble little plants that seek
refuge amidst the crags, and on the crest of the cliff I had climbed I found a
cushion-plant with a host of white flowers with yellow and red throats
(Androsace Chamaejasme). For my part, I would not readily exchange the
exotic gardens of a Mogul Emperor for a sight of these little plants that lift
their starry heads close to the eternal snows.

It was a beautiful afternoon, for the weather had recovered its good
humour, and I spent a delightful hour on the alp, lounging on my back amid
the flowers and looking across the Banke Glacier to the ice-crowned
precipices of Rataban gleaming in the afternoon sun as though built of liquid
but immobile silver.

I did not return by the way I had come, but by another route which
crossed the alp above the gorge, and after traversing a narrow ledge,
descended pastry-like rocks and steep screes to the camp.

That evening we made ourselves comfortable round a fire of juniper. This
shrub has a smell which I shall always associate with travel in the
Himalayas, and I have only to sniff the smoke of it to be transported in an
instant back to the camp fire. Someone threw some branches into the centre
of the fire, and with a roaring crackle a great gust of flame illumined the
faces of my companions. The tents stood out sharply and in the background
the dim hillsides rose on their long climb towards the stars.

Alam Singh arrived back soon after dark bringing with him onions, flour
and a spinach-like vegetable, but, alas, no chickens or eggs. More porters’
food was required, and it was arranged that Tewang, who was obviously
unfit for high altitude work, should descend to Gamsali for it and hire a
porter to carry it up, whilst Alam Singh was engaged to transport wood to
the lower camps, as it was necessary to husband our petrol and paraffin.

We were off at 7 next morning in doubtful-looking weather. On the slopes
below the gorge we halted to collect juniper, after which I ascended the side
of the gorge, taking some rope with me, whilst Peter remained below to
shepherd the men, whose heavy loads made the ascent very awkward for
them. It was not thought necessary to rope them until they reached the point
where the route lay straight up the wall of the gorge, but I realised that this
was a mistake when I saw Ang Bao struggling to hoist himself and his load
up a place which was entirely without difficulty for an unladen man. Peter
could not see this from his position, nor could he hear my shouts, owing to
the roar of the torrent. With great anxiety I watched the little man striving
desperately to balance up on a foothold over a sheer 200-foot drop, and great
was my relief when I saw him reach safety. He was evidently a poor rock
climber or else overloaded, for the other men made light of the place. Peter
roped the men together and I threw them down the end of the loo-foot rope.
After this it was plain sailing and at length everyone was on the alp, except
Alam Singh, who resolutely refused to have anything to do with the rope, for
which he obviously entertained the gravest suspicion, and who eventually
succeeded in scaling in his bare feet an entirely different route to the right
over some smooth and awkward slabs.

The ascent to the alp had occupied well over two hours, as against the
half-hour I had taken when climbing by myself. Such transport difficulties
all too often lead to modification of plans in the Himalayas, and so it was in
this instance. The preliminary difficulty seemed to have taken the heart out
of the men and they climbed very slowly up the easy slopes above the alp.
Alam Singh was even slower, and found it necessary to sit down and rest
about every fifty yards. It was exasperating when we were anxious to get on

and place our first camp as near to the plateau as possible. Presently mists
gathered, and drizzling rain began to fall.

The flowers were interesting and beautiful. I well remember a rocky
place, where water seeped over some slabs, tufted a brilliant green with
moss between which, in cracks of the rock, bloomed thousands of yellow
androsaces. Then, in the screes, were many plants of the same delphinium
we had seen below the Bhyundar Pass and in turfy places numerous sedums,
with here and there a woolly saussurea. But the most striking flower of all
was a pleurospermum (P. Candollii). .An illustration, even a coloured
illustration, \vould probably convey the impression that this flower is
interesting rather than beautiful, yet of the many flowers that I saw in
Garhwal there was none that attracted me more. It is one foot or less in
height, and at rite end of a stout and hollow stem the flower stalks branch
outwards in all directions, supporting wide-open white flowers delicately
frilled at the edges and with numerous stamens, ending in dark-coloured
anthers. Nothing remarkable, you may say, but you must see this plant on a
misty day, when ii seems to attract the distant sunlight to itself, so that its
thin, almost transparent, petals glow as though illumined from behind. Even
if you have little or no interest in flowers, it demands that you pause and pay
tribute to its beauty and to the Divinity that raised it among the barren rocks.

We camped at about 15,500 feet, much lower than we had hoped, on a
stony desolate place near the steep tongue of a minor glacier. Everyone was
wet and miserable, and Peter and I came to the conclusion that we should
have to lighten the loads considerably on the morrow and work out in detail
a system of relays, else we should not succeed in getting anywhere near the
Mana Peak. Rain continued to fall steadily for the remainder of the day, but
we had a tent each, which was some comfort. I lay in my sleeping-bag
reading Mr. Richard Aldington’s cynical book, “Death of a Hero” It is an
admirable work, but I should have preferred Mr. P. G. Wodehouse on this
occasion. Ang Bao evidently found the conditions equally depressing, for he
did not shine as a cook that evening and the formless lumps of mutton he
produced were only fit to strop a kukri. As a result Peter and I had a bad
night; I did not sleep at all, but lay awake as I often used to He awake on
Mount Everest at much greater heights, marvelling at my folly for
voluntarily exchang-ing the comforts of civilisation for the discomforts of
the high mountains. Many have marvelled thus, yet they return; no one has
ever satisfactorily explained why.

The weather was still misty next morning, but the rain had stopped.
Having sent back Alam Singh, who was more of a hindrance than a help,

and sorted out the food and equipment we were to take on with us, we set off
to the plateau.

Our way lay up a bold moraine on which numerous plants grew, including
Androwce Ckamaejasme and a delightful saxifrage (S. Hirculus] with
yellow petals red at the base and stems covered in rust-coloured hairs.

The moraine ended in a snowy corridor which brought us without
difficulty to the foot of a glacier tongue of bare ice, where Peter, who was
thirsting for some step-cutting, went ahead and hewed out a staircase. It took
an hour to get the men up, after which we found our-selves on a snowfield.
Ascending this we halted for some food on a patch of rocks, then continued
across another snowfield, which is separated from the main ice-fall of the
plateau by a ridge where we saw a cairn, evidently erected by Gardiner. We
followed this ridge for a short distance, then traversed horizontally to the
plateau, which is here considerably crevassed and broken, and which, as
already mentioned, is a glacier system with a series of snow-fields at its
head. We were able to avoid the crevasses by ascending snow-slopes under
an overhanging rock face and presently came to a shelf formed by the lower
lip of a wide crevasse, a short distance below the first major snow- field.
Here we decided to camp, as the day was well advanced, the weather was
once again deteriorating and the men had to return to the first camp by a
route which might be difficult to follow in the event of a blizzard. Our tents
were pitched entrance to entrance for the sake of convenience, and after we
had collected some water from a stream on the neighbouring cliff we retired
to our sleeping-bags.

Snow fell lightly for the remainder of the afternoon. I cooked the supper. I
cannot remember exactly what I cooked, but I suspect it was a hash of some
kind. J am rather good at hashes. There is nothing difficult or niggling about
them, no take this and take that and weigh this and weigh that; yet there is a
complex grandeur in my hashes which Mrs. Beeton at her best could hardly
hope to emulate. My record hash was compounded of eighteen ingredients; I
remember it well because I was sick afterwards.

Cooking in a small tent is a filthy business. To begin with, it has to be
performed while lying in a sleeping-bag. This affords scope for a
professional contortionist, and it often happens that when balancing some
tinful of liquid in an awkward and constrained position, one is seized by a
violent attack of cramp. But I anticipate; first of all the stove must be lit, and
not only lit but kept alight. We had a “Primus” with a burner adapted for use
at high altitudes. A “Primus” is far and away the best cooker for Himalayan
mountaineer-ing and is infinitely better than a methylated or solid

methylated cooker, but good though it is, it is subject to its high altitude
tantrums, and if you endeavour to light it too soon it fills the tent with
noisome fumes which send you coughing and choking into the open air. The
tremendous temptation to pump it vigorously to start with must be resisted,
for this is a cardinal mistake ; the burner lights for a fleeting instant, then
goes out and a vast cloud of smoke rises like a volcanic blast from the
apparatus : strike a match incautiously and the tent is liable to explode. A
“Primus” must be humoured, and be worked up gently to do its job.

It may be cajoled, but never bullied. It suffers from only one ailment, a
more or less chronic quinsy, and it is advisable to have an instrument known
as a pricker handy in case, at a critical moment when the hash is nicely
simmering, it chokes and suffocates. Its diges-tion is remarkably good, and it
can assimilate with equal ease paraffin, petrol or a mixture of both these
fuels. Whether it is as accommodating as a Diesel engine I do not know; I
have not yet tried one with whisky, brandy, lubricating oil or treacle.

After dark the sky cleared suddenly, revealing a starlit expanse of glacier,
and- the dim forms of peaks beyond it. The night was very cold, the coldest
we had yet had, and a damp chill struck up from the snow through the floors
of our tents.

At 4 a.m. I set the “Primus” going and we break-fasted. The sky was
unclouded and dawn showed calmly behind a range of sharp rock-peaks.
The sun struck the camp at 5.15, and a few minutes later we left, intending
to reconnoitre and if possible climb an unnamed peak of 21,140 feet on the
ridge separating the plateau from the East Kamet Glacier, the view from
which should enable us to form an opinion as to whether the two higher
peaks of 22,481 feet and 22,892 feet between it and the Mana Peak could be
out-flanked.

After zigzagging between crevasses we came to the first of the major
snowfields, whence we saw that the peak was obviously accessible from a
col immediately to the east of it and between it and Peak 20,557 feet. We
were now able to appreciate for the first time the beauty and extent of the
plateau. Westwards it stretched beneath Peak 21,400 feet to the foot of an
ice-fall above which there was evidently a further snowfield, and
south- wards we looked over a snowy rim and the concealed Banke Valley to
Rataban, Gauri Parbat, Hathi Parbat and the far blue ridges of Trisul,
Dunagiri and Nanda Devi.

Having crossed the snowfield, we followed a ridge of broken rocks where
we came upon one of Gardiner’s camping sites, and a two-gallon tin of

petrol more than half full. This petrol was a godsend, as it meant that strict
fuel rationing was no longer necessary.

From the surveyors’ camp we ascended some rocks and trudged up a
snow-slope. Conditions were excellent and we climbed fast, perhaps too fast,
for I developed a headache and felt slightly sick, though I suspect this was
due to the fumes of the “Primus” which filled my tent while I was cooking
the breakfast.

Although the surveyors had ascended these slopes several weeks
previously their tracks were still distinct, a proof that only a small quantity
of snow had fallen in this district during the early months of the summer. At
the head of the snow-slope on the ridge overlooking the East Kamet Glacier
is a small island of rock which had been visited by Gardiner and had
probably served as one of his survey stations, as it commands a superb view.
From it we looked down a precipice over 3,000 feet high to the East Kamet
Glacier which, with its sinuous curves and level lines of moraines,
resembled some vast arterial road. At the head of it stood Kamet in all its
superb beauty and majesty. It was the finest view I have ever had of the
mountain and I could, trace out the route by which we had climbed it in
1931. Five of a party of six Europeans had reached the summit, together
with two porters of whom the Sirdar, Lewa, had been so badly frostbitten
that he had lost all his toes. That was the only unhappy memory, but it would
take more than the loss of toes to dishearten or incapacitate a man of Lewa’s
calibre, and he had accompanied the 1933 Everest Expedition.

I had not anticipated when I climbed Kamet that a few years later I should
be attempting the equally fine Mana Peak. From our position the peak was
plainly visible beyond three intervening peaks, the 2 1 , 400-feet peak which
rose immediately above us, and the two peaks of 22,481 feet and 22,892
feet. As we had antici-pated, there was no hope whatever of outflanking
these to the north, for all fell sheer to the East Kamet Glacier thousands of
feet below. The wall bounding that glacier to the south extends for a distance
of seven or eight miles, and is unassailable from the north. Ours was a
unique position on the crest of it, yet in a depres-sion which enabled us to
appreciate to the full the grandeur of ice-cliff and precipice down which
ava-lanches roar and smoke, whilst close at hand was the neve of Peak
21,4.00 feet, riven and rent into square-cut turrets the size of cathedrals —
altogether a splendid scene of mountain savagery and frigid beauty.

A cold little wind presently decided us to continue with the ascent of Peak
2 1 ,400 feet. There was no difficulty whatsoever in the climb, which lay up a
slope of snow about 1 ,200 feet in height. As we had ascended very quickly

to the ridge we decided to go slowly, and taking turns at the step-making
mounted at the rate of about 1,000 feet an hour. As we climbed the sky
clouded over and by the time we reached the summit, which consists of an
almost level snowfield an acre or two in extent, a level canopy of cloud
truncated all the higher peaks to the south and east. Yet if the view in most
directions was disappointing, there was one mountain which showed to great
advantage, Nilgiri Parbat. Only the uppermost portion was visible, the great
slope on which Wangdi, Nurbu and I had laboured so long, but it seemed to
float up in the mist sunlit and serene, as though annexed permanently to the
heavenly regions.

Unfortunately we could see little of the plateau or the ridges to the west of
our peak. Soon mists began to form about us, and a cold, damp wind rustled
across the snow. There was no object in prolonging our stay and in five
minutes we pelted down slopes that had taken over an hour to climb, then
strolled back to the camp.

It was typical monsoon weather: a fine morning, then rapidly forming
mists, and a snowstorm in the afternoon, which rendered the remainder of
the day in camp thoroughly disagreeable. As previously arranged, three of
the men, Wangdi, Pasang and Tse Tendrup, had ascended from the first
camp with a second relay of loads, leaving Ang Bao and Nurbu to descend
to the base camp for the extra coolie food which was being brought up from
Gamsali.

The advent of the porters meant that we needed no longer to cook for
ourselves. The chief objection to cooking in the high Himalayas, apart from
the work it involves, is the mess and the dirt, and the floor of a tent soon
becomes filthy with congealed samples of various foods. The carbon formed
by burning petrol and paraffin is peculiarly obnoxious in this respect.
Washing is impracticable, as water obtained by melting snow over a cooker
is far too precious to be used thus, and the skin quickly becomes ingrained
with dirt, whilst finger-nails go into profound mourning. But my most
disagreeable memory in connection with this business of eating and drinking
at high altitudes is of washing up. This is accomplished by rubbing the pots,
pans, plates and other utensils with snow, a chilly, uncomfortable and
altogether loathsome task. Sherpa and Bhotia Porters, on the other hand,
regard cooking from an entirely different angle. Like children, they love to
be given opportunities of making a first-class mess. I honestly believe that
these men are positively unhappy « accommodated in a clean tent and told
not to dirty it, in which respect they resemble the slum-dweller, who when
transferred to a new tenement promptly proceeds to use the bath as a

convenient receptacle for co- .. Another thing that the Himalayan porter
loves is a fug in his tent, and there is no doubt that cooking greatly assists in
the formation of this. On such an occasion, the interior of a porter’s tent
must be experienced to be believed, for the atmosphere generated is of such
density that it seems almost possible to cut it up into lumps and throw it out
of the entrance. This love of a fug is common among mountain folk and
mountaineers. To my mind,’ people who pretend to revel in draughts and
cold rooms, who impinge on their friends at the breakfast table with a
horrible heartiness and in general adopt such manners and costumes as are
most likely to impress on all and sundry their hardihood and devotion to the
open air, ought to be put away in some special fresh-air asylum where they
may indulge their horrid practices to their hearts content

Perhaps the greatest menace of all is the man, and not infrequently the
woman, who insists on filling an already freezing railway carriage with a
violent draught, then revels like the sadist he is in the acute discomfort of his
fellow-passengers. The Direktion of the Lindenalp Railway settled the vexed
question once and for all when they put up the notice:

In the event of a dispute between passengers as to whether the window
shall be open or shut, the dispute shall be referred to the conductor, and the
window then shut.

I think it was Dr. Howard Somervell who told me that he was once
travelling in comfort with the window shut when an old gentleman got in at
a station and, after fidgeting and shuffling in that manner peculiar to a fresh-
air fiend, said irascibly: “I really must insist on that window being opened.”
Had he spoken politely, no doubt a compromise would have been effected :
as it was the window remained shut. This led to a tirade in which such
expressions as “Degenerate young men of the present day “were employed
freely. It is a pity that this indignant old gentleman got out at the next station
without knowing that he was speaking to one of the toughest and finest
mountaineers of the post-war era who had only recently returned from a
Mount Everest Expedition. If he has not since died of chronic bronchitis,
pneumonia or rheumatic fever, I hope that he will chance upon these lines.

Next morning, August 2nd, we set out to establish another camp. The
weather was in poor shape and in a thick mist we groped our way up the first
snow-field, steering with the aid of a compass and a detailed and excellent
sketch-map supplied by Gardiner. With-out the latter it is probable that we
should have kept too far to the south and have got into difficulty on Peak
20,087 feet which rises from the southernmost edge of the plateau. As it was
we were able to make our way through the ice-fall above the first snow-field

to another snow-field, which lies to the south of Peak 21,400 feet. Now and
again, when the mists thinned, we could see the slopes of this peak to our
right, and were careful to keep well away from the base of it, in case of ice
avalanches.

We took it in turns to lead and Peter steered a skilful course through the
crevasses of the ice-fall, but when my turn came on the snow-field above I
was soon told that I was describing a circle. One reason for bearing off the
compass course was the unexpected presence of steep slopes where we had
expected none. There was no debris on the glacier to indicate that ice
avalanches fall from these, but it seemed advisable to keep well away from
them. Up to this point we had made, as was revealed later, an excellent line,
but we were now beyond the point we had seen during the previous day’s
climbing, and also, we believed, beyond the farthest point reached by
Gardiner. All about us was mist and a waste of snow, and not a landmark
was to be seen. Our position was analogous to that of a blind man searching
for a black cat on a dark night. Nothing was to be gained by blundering on,
and we decided to camp until the weather cleared, so our single tent was
pitched and the porters sent back to the second camp.

It was an unusual experience to camp without knowing in the least where
we were, and we awaited the lifting of the mists with a feeling akin to that of
a child who is all agog for the curtain to rise on the first act of a pantomime.
We had not very long to wait. At 4 p.m. the mists began to break up: a rift of
sky showed and against it a sunlit edge of snow. Quickly now the mists
melted away and the almost level snow-field on which we were camped
shone out in virgin splendour and beauty.

Immediately to the west of the camp was a snow-ridge easily accessible at
one point where it sank down almost to the level of the snow-field, and we
set out to investigate what lay beyond it.

The sun was fast sinking as we mounted a slope to a shallow col in the
ridge. The view from this col is for ever impressed on my memory. The
ridge runs roughly from north to south and is interposed between the snow-
field on which our camp was pitched and a snow-field enclosed between
Peaks 21,400 feet and 22,481 feet. The last-mentioned snow-field is not part
of the glacier up which we had come, but forms the head of a glacier
descending to join the Banke Glacier.

From the col, a slope about 200 feet in height falls to an extraordinary
steep and broken ice-fall in which the snow-field breaks away at its southern
most edge. Mist still lay below our level and now and then tongues of it

licked up the ice-fall between towers of ice to be illumined suddenly and
brilliantly by the reddening sun, so that the ice-fall flamed and smoked like a
witch’s cauldron.

The snow-field above the ice-fall afforded a superb contrast to this savage
and uneasy scene, for its level and unbroken expanse stretched calm and
serene like a cloth of pure silver. At its westernmost extremity Peak 22,481
feet stood deeply shadowed with a thin wispy cloud, brilliantly sunlit,
stealing across it. Here and there other clouds were stationary in a sky of
turquoise-blue like yachts waiting for a fair wind and in the south enormous
masses and banks of monsoon cumulus were ranged along the distant
foothills and the peaks of Nanda Devi.

As the sun slipped down behind Peak 22,481 feet the vast snow- fields
about us glowed with an unearthly light. It was a scene that might have been
borrowed from an Antarctic plateau and we had much the same feeling of
remoteness that the Polar explorer experiences, for no valleys were visible
and we gazed over unending wastes of snow and ice, a superlatively majestic
vista as restful to the spirit as it was cruel and hostile to the flesh.

We returned to camp moderately satisfied with our reconnaissance. The
snow-field we had seen was easily accessible, but as to what lay beyond it,
and whether Peak 22,481 feet could be turned to the south, we could only
conjecture. Was there another snow-field between it and Peak 22,892 feet ?
If so, would it be possible to traverse this to the east ridge of the Mana Peak
? It was evident that we should have to lengthen our com-munications
considerably and another two camps at least would be necessary. Taking all
in all our chances of climbing the Mana Peak from this direction were now
very remote.

CHAPTER XIX
PEAK 22,481 FEET

THE improvement in the weather was only temporary, and next morning
mist again concealed everything. Inactivity was distasteful, and though we
should not in any event be able to pitch a fourth camp until the morrow, as
the porters would be occupied in relaying stores from the second camp, we
decided to make certain of the route to the snow-field. Accordingly, we re-
ascended the col and followed the sharp crest of the snow-ridge to the north
of it until we came to a place whence it was possible to descend to the snow-
field above the ice-fall.

The porters arrived during the day, so that everything was ready to
advance the camp on the morrow. Once again the mists cleared and a calm
evening was succeeded by a night of intense frost. August 4th dawned
brilliantly clear and we were off at 6.30. An inch or so of snow had fallen in
the past two or three days, and this had frozen into a light crystalline powder
that glittered and sparkled in the sun. It was a morning to delight a
photographer, and Peter and I busied ourselves with our cameras during the
traverse of the ridge on to the snow-field. Every vestige of haze had
dis-appeared and all of the greater peaks were visible, including Trisul,
Nanda Devi and the mountains in the neighbourhood of the Milam Glacier.
The finest of all the peaks in the vicinity of the Banke Glacier was Nilgiri
Parbat. Mists swathed its lower shoulders, but the upper ice-slope, now so
familiar, stood out above them like a tempestuous wave, frozen as it was
about the curl over and break. Seldom is the photo-grapher presented with
such perfect lighting and beautifully arranged composition and though no
photo-graph can do justice to the grandeur and ethereal beauty of such a
scene the photograph I was able to secure does suggest the splendour of this
noble mountain.

As we trudged across the snow-field I was reminded of a similar trudge
early one morning in the Bernese Oberland over the Ewig Schneefeld, for
there is a strong similarity between the “ Field of Eternal Snow “ and this
Himalayan snow-field.

The snow- field sloped gently to the west for three-quarters of the distance,
then more steeply to another minor ridge at the foot of Peak 22,481 feet. We
gained the ridge without difficulty, and looked expectantly beyond it to the
west. We hoped to see another snow-field enabling us to outflank Peak
32,481 feet, but in this we were disappointed. From the ridge, steep snow-
slopes fall to the west, and it would be necessary to descend these for some
distance before continuing the traverse. Then came a ridge with a steep ice-
slope which could not be avoided. Was there an easy route beyond it and
was it justifiable to force a route over such difficult terrain? To do so would
mean cutting ourselves off from our base for an indefinite length of time and
extending our communications to an unjustifi-able length. What would
happen in the event of bad weather preventing a retreat for several days? We
were a light party with neither sufficient food nor equip-ment for prolonged
siege tactics. I think we both realised that the game was up and that the
Mana Peak was inaccessible from the east.

The sole remaining hope was a higher route past Peak 22,481 feet. We
had taken only two and a half hours to the ridge, so decided to camp in a

sheltered hollow, and the same day attempt the ascent of this peak, the view
from which should reveal once and for all whether or not there was a hope of
approaching the Mana Peak from the east.

It was not an ideal site for a camp, for the slopes of the hollow reflected
the sun with terrific heat, so that we felt like flies beneath a burning-glass,
but it was better than the wind-swept crest of the ridge. A drink of tea and
we were ready to begin the ascent. Mean-while, the men returned to the third
camp with instructions to return with the remaining food and equipment on
the morrow, though in case bad weather should isolate us at this camp
we’had brought up food and fuel for several days.

The easiest route to the top of Peak 22,48 1 feet is over the south ridge.
Unfortunately, with that perverseness characteristic of the monsoon season,
mists were already gathering and by the time we had climbed 500 feet of
easy slopes we were unable to see whether or not it was possible to continue
the route in the direction of the Mana Peak. For 1,000 feet there was no
difficulty whatsoever, then the ridge narrowed and rose in an unclimbable
rock step. To avoid this we had to ascend an ice-slope to the right. The ice
was steep and peculiarly glutinous and many strokes of the axe were
required to fashion a step. But if it was hard work for me, it was an equally
tedious business for Peter, who for the next hour had to stand in his steps
while paying out the rope inch by inch.

Not far from the top of the slope was a shallow scoop that had to be
crossed diagonally. In negotiating this my arms became tired and my axe
seemed very unready to do its work, but the steps were made at last, and
with a feeling of intense relief at having accomplished as strenuous a piece
of ice work as I have done in the Himalayas, I secured myself to a rock and,
seated in comfort, took in the rope as Peter ascended.

Thenceforwards the ridge consisted of broken rocks and snow. The mists
gathered more densely as we climbed and we reached the shoulder in a
desultory snow-storm. The final ridge, which runs almost due west from the
summit, is broken up into minor pin-nacles. For the most part we were able
to follow the crest, but in one or two places were forced to forsake it and
traverse to one side or the other of the pinnacles. There was no great
individual difficulty, but the sum of all the difficulties made a formidable
total for a climb at this altitude.

The rock-ridge abutted against the final peak which, though steeper, was
less difficult. We climbed slowly, for we were tired, and it was a relief when

at length the ridge no longer rose before us but eased off gently into a
horizontal snow edge forming the summit.

There was no view, yet we were conscious of standing on a high and
isolated peak. We could not see, but we could sense, the precipices that fall
for thousands of feet to the East Kamet Glacier. With a chill little wind
blowing, there was no inducement to stay, and with common accord we
turned and commenced the descent.

The sole difficulty was the ice-slope, where seeping water had damaged
the steps. The arduous task of cutting them anew was undertaken by Peter,
whom I held from the rocks above while seated in a cold wind, which
bombarded me with hail and snow. When my turn came to descend I found
that already many steps were unsafe owing to the rapid flow of water, and I
must have exasperated my companion by re-cutting them. Descending steep
ice is never pleasant when the legs are tired, and the slow balancing
movement from one step to the next imposes a greater strain on the knee
than in any other form of climbing. The reader can verify this for himself by
standing with the toes of one foot on the extreme edge of a high step for a
minute or two, then very slowly stepping down with the other foot and
gradually transferring the weight. To do this for an hour or two not only
provides an excellent illustration but is one of the best training exercises for
mountaineering I know.

Back at the camp we imbibed pints of tea and were soon telling one
another what a grand climb it had been. Fortunate indeed is man that he can
forget so soon the physical stresses of life and remember only the greater
blessings of his strenuous endeavours.

Once again the mists cleared- in the night and next morning, August 5th,
in fair weather we retraced our steps up the lower slopes of Peak 22,481 feet
until we were about 500 feet above the camp, then traversed horizontally
across a broad ill-defined ridge to a corner, whence we were able to see all
that lay beyond.

The Mana Peak is not accessible from the east. We stood on the edge of a
semicircle of precipices, enclosing the head of a deeply cut glacier, on the
far side of which rose Peak 22,892 feet, a fang of ice cutting sharply into the
morning sky. There was no possibility what-ever of further advance 3 for the

precipice fell sheer at our feet to the glacier in vast sheets of ice broken by
belts of rock slabs. Even supposing that the col between Peaks 22,481 feet
and 22,892 feet could be reached, the traverse of the latter peak would be by

itself a long and difficult expedition. We were beaten and must attempt the
Mana Peak from some other direction.

Now that there was no further need to concentrate on one task we were
able to take stock of our surround-ings. A labyrinth of peaks lay before us,
sharply cut, wall-sided peaks with razor-like edges rising from unseen
glaciers. Over them our vision passed to the peaks of Badrinath, and the
glorious isolated pyramid of Nilkanta. Fleecy cloudlets were slowly sailing
along the Alaknanda Valley and in the south a great wail of luminous
monsoon mist rested on the foothills. Over 4,000 feet beneath was the Banke
Glacier, banded with orderly moraines, sweeping round in parabolic curve
between ranks of splendid peaks whose innu-merable edges, domes, towers
and spires shone serenely in the warm sunlight.

We had failed to climb the Mana Peak from the Banke Plateau, but we
had been richly rewarded in other ways and the interesting and beautiful
views we had enjoyed during the past few days amply compensated us for
any momentary disappointment.

The porters arrived at the camp soon after we re-turned. It was sad to tell
them when they had carried up so many heavy loads that we had failed, but I
think they accepted failure as inevitable, for so experienced a mountaineer as
Wangdi must have realised already that we were still far from the Mana
Peak.

It was necessary to evacuate the camps as quickly as possible, and this
meant that everyone must carry a very heavy load. A drink of tea and we set
about the task of packing up the tent and stores. This done, we set off to the
third camp, at which a single tent was added to the loads. Some lunch, and
we continued down to the second camp. None of us were enamoured of this
cold desolate site, and Wangdi suggested that we should add still further to
our mountainous loads and carry on down to the ridge where the surveyors
had camped ; though Peter and I felt as though our neck and shoulder
muscles had been branded with red-hot irons.

After several days camping on snow, it was a relief to camp on rocks, for
these are always warmer than snow and usually less exposed to strong
winds. There were plants on the ridge: a little draba (D. incompta) and a
saussurea, with a purple flower in the midst of silvery wool-like foliage. As
the men pitched the tents, we spied the unfortunate Nurbu and Ang Bao,
toiling up the glacier with additional stores from the base camp, but I suspect
that any grief they may have felt for a day of useless work was mitigated by
the thought that they would have to go down, not up, on the morrow.

The difference between camping at 20,000 feet and camping at 17,000
feet in the Himalayas is astonishing. An appetite for food, and a capacity for
sound, restful sleep, are possible at the lower altitude whereas both are
•absent at the higher. Medical authorities have put 21,000 feet as the highest
altitude at which it is possible to live for a considerable time without serious
physical or mental deterioration, but I would place 19,000 feet as the limit in
this respect, at all events as regards my own capacities. A great deal of
nonsense is talked about the effects of altitude, such as the Italian
con-tention that Addis Ababa is too high from a physical standpoint as their
capital in Abyssinia, though undoubtedly the palm must be given to the dear
old lady who came fluttering up to Mr. Hugh Ruttledge after his return from
Everest, exclaiming: “I can understand what you have gone through at those
terrible heights. I live at Crowborough.”

Next day we descended to the base camp, and very pleasant it was to get
down to the flowers and the balmy air of the Banke Valley. After so many
strenuous days, a rest day for the porters, at least, was essential. Both of us
had been burned, in spite of copious applications of face cream, for several
days on Himalayan snow-fields under almost vertical suns would cause
discomfort to an armadillo, and our throats were a trifle sore, due possibly to
breathing continuously through the mouth.

Tewang was no better. He was occasionally spitting blood and there was
something evidently seriously wrong with him. We decided to send him
down without delay to Joshimath, where there is a hospital whence he could
be forwarded to Ranikhet and Darjeeling. (His trouble turned out to be a
mild but chronic bronchitis.)

As we would have to engage a substitute at the first opportunity we were
forced to deprive him of his climb-ing boots- As already mentioned, he had
cherished these -with an abounding love, and it went very much against the
grain to surrender them. He was allowed, however, to keep his climbing suit,
as we had enough spare clothing to equip his successor. The remainder of
the Darjeeling men were remarkably callous as to the plight of their
companion. They do not understand sickness until afflicted themselves and
Wangdi, although he had gone down with double pneumonia on Mount
Everest in 1933, despised the invalid for an indisposition that did not allow
him to take part in the more strenuous affairs of the expedition and more
than once darkly hinted that he was shamming.

So ended our first round with the Mana Peak. We had been afforded an
example of the necessity for prolonged reconnoitring in the Himalayas

before attempting the ascent of a major peak, and reconnoitring is half the
fun and interest of Himalayan mountaineering.

□

CHAPTER XX

THE MANA PEAK: THE RECONNAISSANCE

Gardiner had written that he did not think the Mana Peak was accessible
from the south; therefore, all we could hope for was a reconnaissance from
the head of the Banke Glacier. We would then follow his route across the
Zaskar Range via the Zaskar Pass, 18,992 feet, to the south of the mountain,
and descend to Badrinath. For this we needed about one week’s food, and
the day after we returned to the base camp Wangdi descended to Gamsali for
some more sattoo for the porters, and two men to help carry the loads over
the pass to Badrinath.

Two days at the base camp gave me time to examine and collect plants in
the Banke Valley. As previously mentioned, the climate of this valley is
distinctly drier than that of the Bhyundar Valley, as it is less exposed to the
monsoon current. Actually I observed few plants which I had not already
seen, or was later to see, in the Bhyundar Valley, but it was noticeable that
the flora was more advanced than in the latter valley and that flowers which
do not normally bloom until late August or early September in the south of
Garhwal, bloom here in laic July and early August. The valley’s proximity
to Tibet must have something to do with this, for in that arid country it is
remarkable how plants leap into growth during the early part of the
monsoon, and it needs but a fortnight of moist warm air to convert an
apparently barren waste into a carpet of flowers. This haste in plants to
perpetuate themselves is doubtless because of the shortness of the summer
season between the cold winds of spring and autumn. Well to the south of
the Himalayan watershed the summer is longer and plants need not hasten to
complete their cycle of growth.

I found an excellent instance of this in a lettuce (Lactuca Lesserliana). I
was nosing about some rocks not far from the camp when I noticed a purple
flower on a cliff above me. Not having seen it before, I climbed up to it over
steep and difficult rocks. I need not have given myself so much trouble, for
six weeks later when I returned to the Bhyundar Valley, I found it growing
in its millions on a slope near the base camp where it had but recently come
into bloom. Another proof of the greater dryness and possibly windiness of
the Banke Valley as compared with the Bhyundar Valley was afforded by

the large number of cushion plants such as saxifrages and androsaces.
Except at greater elevations I did not see such compact foliage in the
Bhyundar Valley. It is impossible that these little cushions covered all over
in almost stalkless starry flowers can retain their delightful characteristics in
the warm moist climate of Britain ; they must inevitably become lank and
attenuated. Yet the gardener can scarcely grumble ; that a plant flourishing at
a height greater than Mont Blanc should grow at all in our climate pertains
to the miraculous.

The weather was now excellent and Peter and I spent two delightful days
at the base camp. Late the second day, when night had fallen and we were
enjoying the warmth of a fire, Wangdi reappeared together with two men he
had secured at Gamsali. It had not been an easy task to find porters and these
two had only con-sented to come when he had promised them that they
would be engaged for the remainder of the expedition, and be provided with
boots and equipment at Badrinath, promises he had no authority whatsoever
to make and which as he knew could not be kept. At all events here they
were and everything was now ready for our first march up the Banke Glacier
on the morrow.

The weather was in cheerful vein when, on the morning of August 8th, we
began the ascent of the glacier. A rough shepherd’s track followed along the
northern bank, sometimes on the crest of the side moraine and sometimes in
a corridor, gay with potentillas and allardias, between the glacier and the
hillside. This track con-tinued as far as the shepherds’ highest bivouac place,
Eri Udiar, but beyond this there is no track and the traveller must fend for
himself in a wilderness of stones and moraine.

We made excellent progress, but had to halt many times for the porters,
who were continually retarded by the slowness of the two local men. At his
best, the Marcha Bhotia is slow compared with the Sherpa or Bhotia
(Tibetan). Instead of completing a march in a reasonable time and enjoying a
long rest during the afternoon and evening, he prefers to loiter along
through-out the day regardless of rain, snow or any other inconvenience.
This may suit his book, but it is exasperating to his employers, and I know
of no sterner test of patience than to travel with these men.

About Eri Udiar, the Banke Glacier sweeps round almost at a right angle,
and the traveller leaves the side of it in favour of a route which cuts across
the perimeter of the bend. The ascent was unexpectedly easy, though there
was a good deal of up and down going on mounds of moraine which varied
from 50 to 100 feet in height. By the time we had turned the corner it was
evident that bad weather was brewing, but not even the eloquence of Peter,

who has a fluent command of Urdu, could coax the two Gamsali men and
they became slower and slower and their halts more frequent. I was ahead,
finding the best route through a tangle of moraines, when a shout announced
that they had halted once and for all. It was impossible to persuade them to
continue. Not for any quantity of clothing, boots or baksheesh would they
have ventured farther. They were beyond the grazing grounds; no one from
their village had ever penetrated so far up the glacier; it was a country of
spirits, demons, dragons and psychic phenomena of all kinds. There was
nothing to be done; they returned and their loads were distributed between
us and our own long-suffering porters. Wangdi was furious, and if looks
could have killed Gamsali would have been two short in its population
register. So once more Peter and I trudged along with well-filled rucksacks;
and I remember thinking then, and on other occasions too, that the cult of the
small expedition can be overdone and that there are occasions when it has its
distinct disadvantages.

The mists drooped lower and a blue veil of rain swept down the valley. It
was gone within half an hour, leaving the sun to shine brightly through
heaped-up masses of cloud. We camped where the surveyors had camped on
a medial moraine of the glacier and were cheered a little at finding a load of
wood they had left there. But I for one was in a thoroughly bad temper.
Perhaps the stones had something to do with this, for nothing is more trying
to the temper than a day spent pounding over loose stones. I have never
for-gotten Bentley Beauman’s remarks on this subject in 1931 when for two
days we marched up the stony floor of the Arwa Valley. Shakespeare could
not have surpassed him in adjectival or epithetical force on the subject of
stones.

There was more desultory rain, more doubtful bun and swirling mists,
then with magical suddenness the evening cleared, the mists vanished into a
frosty atmosphere and, far above, the great boiler-plate precipices the ice-
cliffs of Nilgiri Parbat gleamed in the setting sun.

The night was cold and was rendered uncomfortable for me by the
puncturing of my air mattress. Air mattresses are very light and provide an
excellent insulation between the body and the ground, but once they arc
punctured, they are very difficult to repair as not even immersion in water
will reveal a small hole. Furthermore, it takes time to become accustomed to
them, as if they are blown up too tight they are very uncomfortable, whilst if
they are nol blown up enough the ground impinges on the hips. Now that I
was on the ground, I found it uncommonly hard and spent a good part of the

night fiddling about trying to remove innumerable angular stones from
beneath the floor ol the tent.

The morning was cloudless and had it not been for our heavy loads we
might have enjoyed better the day’s march. Beyond the camp, we passed
beneath Nilgiri Parbat, the tremendous cliffs of which are crowned by
immense walls of ice, which now and again collapse and send avalanches
roaring and smoking towards the glacier. Four miles to the north-west of
Nilgiri Parbat, and on the same ridge overlooking the Banke Glacier, is an
unnamed peak of 21,5 16 feet, which is characterised by a fluted ice face. Ice
flutings are common in the Eastern and Western Himalayas, but are seldom
seen in the Central Himalayas. They are formed by a constant downrush of
avalanches which carve out parallel channels separated by thin edges of ice :
the effect is very striking and adds greatly to the beauty of a mountain. In the
present instance, however, the flutings had been weathered into parallel
series of ice-pinnacles, in much the same way that earth-pinnacles, of which
there arc excellent examples in the

Alps, are formed by denudation and weathering. The pinnacles were
remarkable for their height, which cannot have been less than too feet, and
must have been more in a great many instances, and for the manner in which
they clung to the steep face of the mountain. With the sun shining upon
them, they presented a strange scene and reminded us of the ice-pinnacles of
the East Rongbuk Glacier, between which the mountaineer passes on his
way to Everest. It would be interesting to know why this is the only fluted
peak in the district. The pinnacles were on a north-facing slope, and but little
exposed to the full power of the sun. Possibly some air-current was
responsible, but I could think of no complete explanation for their presence.

It was a relief when after a march of three miles the moraines petered out
at the foot of an ice-fall. The latter was not in the least difficult, and soon we
were above it or the uppermost ice of the glacier, whence it is nothing but a
walk to the Zaskar Pass.

As we had planned to reach the pass on the morrow there was no object in
proceeding farther, and we camped on a convenient side moraine. The Mana
Peak was in view and exhibited its south ridge almost in profile. If the crest
could be gained there was a possi-bility that the summit would prove
accessible, but we disliked the look of an apparently vertical step about
1 ,000 feet from the summit. There was no hope of gaining the ridge from the
Banke Glacier as it ended in a buttress, really a separate point of 20,675 feet,
whence impracticable precipices fell sheer to the glacier. It was equally
inaccessible from the south-east or east, for there, apart from terrific

steepness, hanging glaciers swept every line of approach with their
avalanches. As to what lay round the comer to the west of Point 20,675 feet
we could only guess, but from Gardiner’s letter we knew there were steep
ice-falls barring all direct approach to the mountain.

The weather was still improving. No rain or snow fell that day and the
evening was cloudless with Nilgiri Parbat glowing like a vast sail down the
valley, and casting an opalescent light on the camp long after the sun had left
the glacier.

We walked across the glacier to the moraine on the far side. From here the
Mana Peak appeared totally inaccessible, and we neither of us felt that we
stood the remotest chance of success. Yet on this beautiful even-ing a
mundane matter such as climbing a particular mountain could not intrude for
long on the mind and we returned to camp through a motionless, frosty
atmosphere, which was already forming a film of ice on the pools of the
glacier, with the great peak we hoped to climb hard-cut against a deep green
sky at a seemingly immeasurable distance above our heads.

In hard frost we set off next morning to the Zaskar Pass. It was all easy
going, and we did not need the rope until we came to a few small crevasses.
A scramble up a slope of snow and shale and we stood on the pass. Nilkanta
rose to greet us beyond the unseen Alaknanda Valley, and to the north of it
the snows of the Badrinath Peaks glowed serenely in the calm morning air.

Our first impressions had been confirmed during the walk to the pass that
a direct attack on the Mana Peak from the head of the Banke Glacier was out
of the question. Between the lower buttress of the south ridge and the ridge
on which we now stood was an impassable ice-fall which descended from a
recessed plateau enclosed between the south and north-west ridges. I have
never seen a more formidable ice-fall. It was a full 3,000 feet high : wall
upon wall, tower upon tower the ice rose, riven and rent in all directions as
though by an earthquake, whilst tongues of debris stretched far on to the
Banke Glacier. One glance was sufficient; there was no hope there.

But there was one slender chance of success and this was to follow the
ridge from the Zaskar Pass over a subsidiary peak of about 21,500 feet to the
plateau already mentioned. It would be necessary to descend from the peak
to the plateau, and such a descent might well prove impracticable, but once
on the plateau there was a possibility of reaching the long north-west ridge
of the mountain which connects with Kamet, three miles tc the north-north-
west, and of traversing it to the summit.

It was a theory, and fact often jostles uncomfortably on the heels of
theory. The Zaskar Pass is 18,992 feet; the Mana Peak 23,860 feet. Allowing
for a descent of several hundred feet from Peak 21,500 feet to the plateau,
this meant a climb of well over 5,000 feet in a distance of about three
horizontal miles. And, incidentally, there were Peak 21,500 feet, a
formidable climb in itself. From the Zaskar Pass the ridge, after running
more or less horizontally for a short distance, springs up in a sharp and steep
snow-ridge which ends against a rock face about 500 feet high, obviously
very steep in its uppermost portion. Above this rock face the ridge bends
almost at right angles in a snow crest which appeared very narrow, might
necessitate much step-cutting, and which eventually ends in the summit of
Peak 21,500 feet. Furthermore, we were a small party with provisions and
fuel for not more than four days, and it was probable, even supposing that
the traverse of Peak 21,500 feet was practicable, that at least two camps, and
possibly three, would be needed before an attempt on the summit could be
made. On the face of it, all we could hope for was a reconnaissance which
would disclose the possibility or impossibility of the route. Should it prove
possible, we could descend to Badrinath and return with the necessary
sinews of warfare.

Such were our conclusions. It remained only to carry the first part of the
programme into effect and reconnoitre the route. Accordingly when the
porters arrived we told them to pitch the camp just below he crest of the pass
; then, having provided ourselves with some food, we set out at ten o’clock
to climb Peak 21,500 feet.

Although at this stage there seemed no chance whatever of attempting the
Mana Peak in the near future we were both of us fired with an optimistic
energy; and it was impossible not to feel optimistic on a morning when there
was scarcely a cloud in the sky, and only the lightest of winds rustled across
the ridge. We had experienced some dull and misty days on the Banke
Plateau, but now the weather was perfect. Perhaps the fact that we had now
only a little food and a camera apiece contributed to our lightness of foot and
spirits.

After passing along an easy crest of snow and screes we came to the point
where the ridge springs up in a series of snow bulges, before tapering into a
sharp edge. The first of these bulges was of ice, covered with snow which
varied from the merest sprinkling to several inches in depth. Our problem
was to find a route which involved the minimum of step-cutting, and though
in this we were only partially successful, the step-cutting was speedily
accomplished by Peter.

The second bulge was very similar to the first and was followed by snow-
slopes, above which the ridge narrowed and rose steeply to the foot of the
rocks, where we sus-pected the crux of the ascent must lie. It occurred to us
here that we might be able to outflank this difficult upper portion and
possibly Peak 21,500 feet by a traverse to the west and an ascent to the
plateau. In this, however, we were mistaken and after a walk across snow-
slopes we were brought up short on the edge of impassable ice-cliffs.

Before retracing our tracks we glanced down into a glacier some
thousands of feet beneath on to which an ice avalanche had fallen with such
force and momentum that the debris had swept along for a distance of nearly
half a mile. It was a grim reminder of the fate that had overtaken the Nanga
Parbat Expedition, regarding which the Editor of the Alpine Journal wrote:
“It lies beyond any man’s power to calculate the forces of Nature and their
effects on the hanging glaciers and vast snow-fields suspended from those
mighty slopes and precipices.” It is indeed only possible to climb safely in
the Himalayas by keeping not only out of the obvious range of ice
avalanches but out of seemingly impossible range, and parties that attempt
such routes as that on Nanga Parbat will always risk destruction. To what
extent such a risk is justifiable or unjustifiable must depend always on the
climber himself and’ the store he sets on his life and the lives of his porters
balanced against the possible fulfilment of his ambitions.

Having returned to the ridge we recommenced the ascent. Two or three
hundred feet higher we came to a point where the ridge was intersected
horizontally by a crevasse, the upper lip of which formed an ice-wall about
30 feet high. Before crossing the crevasse we halted to admire the icicles
which were suspended from the lip; gleaming in the sun and with a
background of snow-peaks and deep blue sky they made a magnificent
spectacle.

The ice-wall was by no means as difficult as it ap-peared, but even so a
number of steps had to be cut before we were able to gain the slope above.
We now climbed diagonally upwards and regained the crest of the ridge,
which proved so sharp, steep and icy that steps had to be hewn all the way
up it. This arduous task was undertaken by Peter, who now seemed at the top
of his form. It is a privilege to follow behind a first-rate ice-man and during
this part of the ascent I had little to do but step up in the excellent steps made
by my companion. When you do not have to make steps yourself there is
something very pleasant and lulling in the sound of an ice-axe cutting into
snow and ice, and the lazy swish of the dislodged fragments as they skip and
spin into the abyss.

At length the snow-ridge levelled out and ended abruptly against the
rocks. These proved easier than anticipated, for -they were well broken and
consisted for the most part of firm material, reddish in colour; but here and
there were loose rocks, including one slab wedged insecurely in a chimney
over which we climbed as gingerly as cats on a glass-topped wall. A little
way above this was a steep sheep’s back of slabs with small holds, which
necessitated a long run out of rope for the leader, but apart from this and a
short ice-slope with a treacherous covering of snow there was nothing to
give us more than momentary pause until we came to a vertical cliff about
50 feet high immediately under the sharp upper ice-ridge leading towards the
summit. The rock here was dark and striated and none too firm as compared
with that lower down. There was no possibility of climbing directly over the
cliff as the crest overhung, so well held by Peter I moved along a little ledge
to the right until I came to a comer beyond which a narrow ice gully
descended towards the Banke Glacier. This was the cmx of the ascent; if we
could climb up and round this comer there seemed every chance of
circumventing the obstacle. There were good holds, but a severe arm pull
must be avoided at a height of over 20,000 feet. A step or two upwards, then
one to the right, and my exploring hand was able to touch a small, sloping,
scree-covered ledge. This was covered by a film of ice, which I cleared as
well as I could with one hand while supporting myself with the other.
Having at last decided that a step was justifiable, I balanced up with the
delicacy, but scarcely the grace, of a Blondin and a moment later was on the
ledge. But this was not the end of it; the rocks still forced me to the right into
the ice-gully, which was here so steep and narrow that it more nearly
resembled a chimney. Retrieving my ice-axe from my mcksack in which I
had carried it, I cut two or three steps in the ice until I was able to balance
across to a hold on the far side. Then, after climbing upwards for a few feet,
I cut back across the gully on to a sloping ledge immediately under the crest
of the ridge, and above the rock-wall, where I could not resist a triumphant
shout of “Done it !” to Peter.

Soon we were together at the commencement of the ice-ridge. Himalayan
ice-ridges are notorious for their sharpness and there are few edges in the
Alps to equal these fragile crests that lift into the blue with fairy-like and
ethereal beauty. This ridge was no exception. To the right it fell away in
tremendous precipices to the head of the Banke Glacier; to the left we
looked down one of the longest and steepest ice-slopes of my experience.
Indeed, I cannot recollect how or where the slope ended ; it dropped and
dropped for apparently thousands of feet, Along the crest formed by the

inter-section of these two slopes we had to make our way ; a crest so thin
and knife-like that Peter remarked that it was the sharpest ridge he had ever
trodden.

The crest consisted of ice covered with several inches of snow, which
varied in depth so that sometimes it was impossible to drive in our ice-axes
deeply enough to form a firm belay for the rope. Thus it was necessary to cut
good steps. Moving one at a time and taking, turns at the work, we advanced
slowly, keeping just below the crest, which was slightly corniced in places.
It was exhilarating work. A Himalayan mountainside often seems to stifle
ambition and all those qualities that go to make for success on a mountain,
but a ridge is different; here is a celestial pathway, with nothing to oppress
the climber and only the blue sky above.

An hour passed; the slopes to the north-west were now appreciably less
steep and the ridge less acute. Presently we came, to a broad snow-slope. Up
this we trudged very slowly. To carry heavy loads up to a camp, then
indulge in difficult climbing, is a tax on strength, and we were tired.
However, what we lost in energy we made up for in rhythm. Nothing is
more fatiguing than to climb behind a man who has never learned the art of
rhythmical climbing on a snow-slope. Peter is by instinct a snow- and ice-
man, and when he led I found myself following docilely in his wake, and
with that minimum of effort which is linked inseparably with a rhythmical
uphill pace.

So at length we reached the summit of Peak 21,500 feet. It consisted of an
almost level ridge and we trudged along to the far end until we could look
down the plateau. We were only about 300 feet above it and a broad and
easy snow-ridge, a mere walk, linked k with the summit on which we stood.
Beyond the plateau was the north-west ridge of the Mana Peak, a long,
gently sloping and apparently easy crest, an obvious route to the summit.
The sole remaining problem was how to reach it from the plateau. In one
place it sank down forming a shallow col not more than 1 ,000 feet above the
plateau, and linked with the latter by a slope which from our position
seemed inclined at a moderate angle. If this slope, which as far as we could
judge was composed of snow, could be climbed and the ridge gained there
was every hope of reaching the summit.

The south ridge on the other hand looked far more difficult and the rock
step near the top was obviously very steep and likely to prove an insuperable
obstacle. And there was no means of reaching the ridge easily, for the one
and only route from the plateau lay up a subsidiary ridge, which was not
continuous, but petered out high up against a steep face. The north-west

ridge was the easier of the two routes if the slope leading to it could be
climbed.

We returned to camp through the usual afternoon mist, well satisfied with
our reconnaissance.

Perhaps it was the hardness of the ground beneath my punctured air
mattress, or maybe something I had eaten, but I was unable to sleep well that
night. I lay restlessly turning over the events of the day in my mind. The
Mana Peak was accessible, or at least there was a reasonable chance of this,
and the weather and snow conditions were ideal; and we were descending to
Badrinath on the morrow; this meant the loss of a week, and it was unlikely
that the weather would remain good during the height of the monsoon
season.

Had we enough provisions and fuel for an immediate attempt on the
summit, and was an attempt possible with only one additional camp? We
had no time for more than one camp and in any event it would be difficult to
convoy laden porters over Peak 21,500 feet, whilst an ill-provisioned camp
in such a remote situa-tion was out of the question. For several hours I lay
cogitating the problem and the more I cogitated the more clear did the issue
seem ; we must push up a camp to the lower rocks of Peak 21,500 feet and
the day after attempt the summit. This point decided, I slept.

CHAPTER XXI

THE MANA PEAK: THE ASCENT

WE awoke next morning, August nth, to perfect weather, and, as usual,
breakfasted in our tents. Meanwhile, the men packed up ready to descend to
Badrinath. After breakfast I tore myself reluctantly from my sleeping-bag
and crawled out of my tent. The sun was shining from a cloudless sky and
not a breath of wind stirred in all that vast arena of glacier, peak and sky.
This decided me. I lifted the petrol tin; there was a full half-gallon of petrol
left. Then I approached Peter and with some trepidation put the proposal to
him ; that instead of descending we should take a camp as far up the ridge as
possible and on the morrow have a crack at the top. I did not expect him to
acquiesce, but he did; the amount of fuel left was the strongest argument. He
was not enthusiastic to begin with, for he is a sound and cautious
mountaineer, but it was the weather that decided him. We should have to eke
out our slender resources with coolie food, but even so there would be plenty
left for the men. So it was agreed.

Wangdi was informed of the change of plan. I do not know what he
thought, but to judge from his expression I can hazard a shrewd guess. He
had been counting the hours till we should arrive at Mana, where there is
excellent marwa (native beer) and now this and other pleasures were to be
postponed. Undoubtedly the Sahibs were mad, and especially Ismay* Sahib.
(* The nearest the Tibetan can get to my name.) Gloom settled on his hard
face, but it presently vanished. It was a fait accompli and must be accepted
as such; he would see us through with the job. So the tents and stores were
unpacked, resorted and repacked, and an hour later we set off up the ridge.

Climbing even moderately easy snow and ice with laden porters is a very
different matter to climbing without them, and it was necessary to enlarge
con-siderably the steps we had already made. Then, of course, there was
Pasang, who might slip at any moment, whilst of Tse Tendrup and Ang Bao
it cannot be said that they were pillars of strength to the party. How-ever,
Wangdi and Nurbu were well able to take care of their less competent
companions and Nurbu, in particular, had acquired a knowledge of rope craft
which was astonishing, considering that less than two months previously he
was a raw novice unversed in the finer points of mountaineering.

Two hours later we reached the uppermost limit of the snow-ridge and
cast around for a place to pitch the tent. There was only one — immediately
beneath the crest on the precipice falling to the Banke Glacier. At first sight
it seemed an impossible situation, but nothing is impossible 10 the Tibetan
or Sherpa when it comes to pitching a tent and in a few minutes the men had
descended a wall of snow and ice fifteen feet high and were busy excavating
a platform at the base of it where it rested on some rocks. An hour later the
tent had been pitched, the sleeping-bags arranged inside, and a pan filled
with water from a drip nearby. This done, some tea was prepared for the
men, after which they set off down to the Zaskar Pass, having previously had
instructions to return on the morrow and await our arrival.

Perched on the rocks, we watched their descent. It was a ragged little
procession. Pasang and Tse Tendrup in particular seemed to regard their feet
as the least important part of the anatomy, and contrasted oddly with Wangdi
and Nurbu, who moved with the confidence of experienced mountaineers,
plunging in their ice-axes at every step and belaying the rope in readiness to
check a slip.

Having seen them disappear in safety, we surveyed our surroundings. It
was certainly the most sensational camping site of my experience. Like
certain houses of ill design and antique origin it was possible to step straight
out of the bedroom and down the stairs, only in this instance there was a

1,500 feet precipice in lieu of stairs. Immediately behind the tent the ridge
crest concealed the view to the west, but to the east we looked across a
precipice crowned by an ice-wall from which were suspended huge icicles
gleaming in the sun like sheaves of Titanic spears. Beyond this was the edge
of the plateau with a frozen cataract of ice descending from it towards the
Banke Glacier which stretched south-eastwards in two great curves before
disappearing behind a distant shoulder under the shining snows of Nilgiri
Parbat. Immediately beneath was an ice-sheeted gully scored and seamed by
stones which, dislodged by the fierce sun from masses of decaying crags,
never ceased their whirring and humming, with now and then the resounding
crash of a bigger block, until the evening frost had set its seal on the
mountainside.

The weather was good, and not even heavy mists charged with desultory
hail squalls could dim the optimism we now felt about the outcome of the
morrow’s climbing. We spent the afternoon lounging about the warm rocks
and in my case collecting flowers, for even at this inhospitable altitude, far
above the permanent snowline and the nearest alps and meadows, plants had
obtained a lodgment on the crags. I found the same little woolly saussurea I
had already seen on the edge of the Banke Plateau (S. bracteata) and a
beautiful. Unfortunately I lost my specimens of this plant, little yellow-
flowered saxifrage growing from woolly, densely tufted foliage which clung
close to cracks and crannies of the rocks (S. Jacquemontiand).

During the afternoon I lost my pipe and spent a considerable time
searching for it. No doubt it fell from my pocket and descended the gully to
the glacier, from which it will emerge a century or so hence above Gamsali
to gladden, I hope, one of the inhabitants of that village. This was a tragedy,
and Peter com-miserated suitably with me on my loss; at the same time I
suspect that as a non-smoker he was secretly relieved because it was a
particularly foul pipe and the tent we shared was very small.

Our eyrie lost the sun early and the increasing cold forced us to seek the
shelter of our sleeping-bags. From this vantage point we looked out through
the entrance of the tent on the glories of a monsoon sunset. At this season,
when there is an abundance of water vapour in the atmosphere, sunrise and
sunset are far more colourful than in the dry periods before and after the
monsoon. The clouds bear witness to this and the towering masses of
cumulus that are built up during the afternoon glow with a fiery splendour at
sundown. That’ evening the colourings were especially fine. Shortly before
sunset we witnessed the phenomenon known as the Brocken Spectre, the
conditions for which are a low sun and a wall of mist. There was a point not

far from the camp still bathed in sunlight and standing on it I saw my
shadow surrounded by a halo of prismatic colourings cast on the mists that
lingered in the gully to the east of the camp. I attempted to photograph it, but
though I was using panchromatic film the attempt was unsuccessful. Soon
after this the mists rapidly cleared from the vicinity of the Mana Peak, and
lying in our sleeping-bags we gazed out of the tent on to the group of snow-
peaks south of the Zaskar Pass and far beyond them to a vast range of cloud,
sunlit above and shadowed below, spanning the distant foothills. Quickly
white changed to amber and amber to gold as peaks and clouds re-fleeted the
enormous conflagration of the setting sun. Then, even more quickly, the
shadows welled upwards, a delicate opalescent blue at their edges where
they met the sunlight and within a few minutes the peaks had gone out and
only the cloud mountains were left to carry the day to its peaceful ending. A
little later when I looked out of the tent entrance the world had been drained
of all sunlight and was pallid and deathly cold.

We supped off pemmican soup thickened with the porters’ sattoo. Soup is
perhaps scarcely descriptive for Peter, ever a lover of the latter commodity,
which to me tastes like pulverised blotting-paper, added so much that the
resultant mess was practically solid and to assimilate it needed all the
gastronomically fortitude of which I was capable.

My last memory before attempting to sleep is of the stars. Those who
have only seen stars through the dense atmosphere of low levels cannot
conceive their grandeur when viewed through the thin, keen atmo-sphere of
the High Himalayas. The firmament is crowded with innumerable
archipelagos of brilliant fire shining undimmed from horizon to horizon,
except where the Milky Way interposes a spectral luminescent veil,
apparently so near that a hand outstretched could tear it down from heaven.
Beneath these serene eyes the mountaineer must needs forget his little woes.

Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold.
There’s not the smallest orb which thou behold ’st
Bat in his motion like an angel sings,

Still choiring to the young-eyed cherubims ;
Such harmony is in immortal souls;

But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.

Neither of us slept much. I doubt whether I slept at all, but my memory is
vague on the point. It is easy at high altitudes for a man to wake up in the
morning convinced that he has not slept at all. But the bogey of
sleeplessness is not as formidable as it is at sea-level ; the deprivation of
oxygen results in the mountaineer lying in a semi-comatose condition and
the hours pass quickly, not drag by on leaden feet as they do at sea-level. I
remember clearly the silence; there was not a breath of wind or the rumble
of an avalanche the whole night through. I remember, too, in more wakeful
and alert periods turning over again and again in my mind the fortunes of the
morrow, for this was likely, as we both realised, to be the greatest mountain
day in our lives,

At 3 a.m. I got the Primus going after some ineffectual attempts which
filled the tent with fumes. It was bitter cold at that hour and everything that
could freeze had frozen, including our boots, but a hot porridge of sattoo and
a cup of chocolate put life into us.

At five o’clock the’ light was sufficiently strong to permit of our starting.
Stiffly we mounted to the ridge and began the ascent of the rocks. The stars
were paling rapidly in the fast-strengthening light, and the weather was
perfect; not a cloud.

As we climbed, at first up the chimney and broken rocks, then over the
slabby section where my hands, which I had to remove from my gloves to
grasp the small holds, became very numb, our muscles soon lost their
stiffness and we began to enjoy the ascent.

We made good progress to the foot of the wall immediately beneath the
ridge, but here we were checked. The trickles from the snow melted by
yesterday’s sun had frozen in ugly sheets of ice on the holds and on the scree
shelf above, and the ice-axe pick had to be requisi-tioned to clear the rocks,
an awkward business when only one hand was free, the other being occupied
as a support.

The landing on to the frozen scree-covered shelf was particularly delicate,
but at length we were over the obstacle and on the snow-ridge above. Here,
thanks to the steps cut two days previously; we made rapid progress and at
6.30 were on the summit of Peak 21,500 feet.

A downhill walk of about 300 feet brought us to the plateau, which was
still in shadow and very cold. Crossing this and ascending gently, we made
for the north-west ridge; but the nearer we approached the slope leading to

it, the more formidable did it appear, and it soon became evident that we had
been misled as to the angle.

Splitting the base of it was a bergschrund, half choked with snow. Peter
crossed, held on the rope round my indriven ice-axe, and cut a step or two
over the shallow lip of the crevasse to the slope above. Once on this I hoped
to see him advance quickly, kicking or slicing out steps in frozen snow, but
instead he cleared away what was evidently a surface layer of loose,
powdery snow and swung his axe ; it met the slope with a dull thud — ice.
And ice of the toughest quality to judge from the time it took to fashion a
step. Two or three steps, and he called on me to join him. I did so. There was
no mistaking the fact that the slope was an ice-sheet from base to crest,
covered not with a layer of firm well-consolidated snow, as we had hoped,
but in snow of the consistency of flour or castor sugar. To climb the slope
would involve the additional labour of clearing this surface snow away in
order to cut a step. And the slope was about 1,000 feet high ; it meant a
day’s work at least, in all likelihood two days’ work, even supposing we had
the strength to do it at a height of nearly 22,000 feet. There was nothing for
it but to descend.

Having returned to the plateau, we discussed the situation. The game was
up, but was it quite up? There was one possibility, a very remote
possibility — the south ridge. We had already agreed that it could in all
probability be reached from the plateau along a subsidiary ridge ascending to
a point about 1,500 feet from the summit of the mountain, but we had also
agreed that the ridge was more difficult than the north-west ridge and that
the rock step some 800-1,000 feet from the summit appeared very
formidable. Still, it was the only alternative open to us and we decided to
attempt it, though I do not believe either of us had any hope of ultimate
success.

To reach the foot of the subsidiary ridge we had to cross the plateau and
descend some 300-400 feet, which descent increased twofold the work of the
day.

There was no difficulty in approaching the foot of the subsidiary ridge,
but to reach the crest we had to clamber up a steep little gully with an
awkward rock step. The ridge consisted of a thin edge of icy snow sweeping
up like the blade of a scimitar before petering out in the west face of the
south ridge about 400 feet from the crest.

Sometimes step-kicking was permissible, but for the most part it was safer
and less fatiguing to slice steps out of the ridge crest. Peter did most of the

work and we progressed steadily along this sensational edge with feet turned
outwards like a pair of Charlie Chaplins.

The angle of the ridge increased the higher we ascended, so that by the
time we got to the point where the ridge ended in the face it cannot have
been less than 50 degrees. Much depended on the condition of the face; if
there had been the least possibility of the snow sliding we should have had
no option but to retreat; but the slope was in good order, a hard slope of
compacted snow and ice; mostly ice. It was also very cold, being as yet
untouched by the sun, and we gazed longingly at some sun-warmed rocks on
the ridge crest far above us.

From the point of view of sheer hard work this last 400 feet was one of
the toughest jobs I have ever engaged in, and there is no doubt that Peter,
who rose splendidly to the occasion to do a lion’s share of step-cutting,
although he had already worked hard on the ridge below, must attribute his
failure to reach the summit to the energy he expended at this stage of the
climb.

Here and there were rock slabs which afforded welcome resting places but
seldom security for the rope. At length the angle eased offa little and a minor
rib of rocks and snow led up to the crest of the south ridge which we gained
with a vast sense of relief at ten o’clock.

Here the sun met us for the first time and we plumped down on a rock to
revel in its warm rays. Peter’s feet had become numbed with cold during the
ascent, and the first thing he did was to take off his frozen boots and restore
the circulation with a vigorous massage. If I remember aright we tried to cat
some chocolate, but with little success; after breathing hard through the
mouth in the cold, dry air there was little saliva in our mouths and our throat
muscles would not function efficiently. This disability is common at high
altitudes and is, I believe, partly responsible for loss of appetite when
climbing. For this reason liquid food is far to be preferred to solid food.

From our position the south ridge stretched roughly horizontal for some
distance, though considerably broken up into minor points, crests and rocks
towers; then it sprang upwards in a steep rock ridge alternating with
occasional snow edges to the sharp-pointed summit. We were looking at it
en face, so could not estimate the difficulty of the rock step which we knew
was likely to be the crux of the climb.

Had we been climbing in the Alps we might have appreciated the
grandeur and complexity of the edge along which we scrambled, but at

nearly 23,000 feet these qualities are seldom appreciated by mountaineers
who have already expended much energy in overcoming initial difficulties.

For the next hour we made little or no height and in several instances lost
it when descending some rock tower or snow point. In places the ridge was a
snow crest, sometimes corniced on its eastern side, and we traversed
cautiously one at a time across the steep western slope; in other places we
moved both together over broken rocks.

This horizontal section ended in two or three little rock towers more
formidable than any yet encountered and we had to descend some fifty feet
to the west and traverse across the face to avoid them. Fortunately the slope
we traversed was composed of hard snow, not ice, and we were presently
able to regain the ridge without difficulty at the point where it swept steeply
upwards to the summit, which now seemed close to us but was in reality a
full 1 ,000 feet higher.

Now at last we were at grips with the final problem, and what a splendid
problem it was. I shall always regret that we were too tired to enjoy those
red granite slabs that lifted up and up in a great sweep towards the finely
tapered summit edging proudly into the blue. Here was something to warm
the heart and blood: clean, firm granite and a perfect day with not a breath of
wind to chill us; what more could we have desired in different
circumstances? But now a weight of tiredness opposed us, and out of the tail
of my eye I could see that my companion was climbing with increasing
effort and that every upward step was a painful weariness to him.

We came to a sloping platform on the crest and there- Peter seated himself
wearily and told me that if he continued he would become unsafe as he was
now very tired. He was not exhausted, but might become so with further
effort. It was a terrible dis-appointment to us both. Seated side by side we
dis-cussed the situation. There was no doubt that he was suffering primarily
from the effects of altitude. As long as he rested he felt fit and strong, but
directly he exerted himself uphill intense fatigue supervened. To climb
downhill is, as I knew from my experiences on Everest, easy, even to a man
who cannot muster the energy for another upward step. I asked myself,
firstly, was it justifiable to leave him resting at that point and, secondly, was
I justified in making a solitary attempt on the summit? Had the weather been
anything but perfect there would have been no choice in the matter — we
should have had to descend. But the weather was perfect; although it was
nearly noon the sun was shining with unabated fierceness and the rocks even
at this great elevation were warm to the touch. Sol asked him if he minded
my carrying on alone. Though he gave no positive indication of his feelings,

I do not believe he liked the idea ; it was not the prospect of being left alone
but my safety that worried him, and afterwards he told me how anxious he
had been, which is typical of him — the most unselfish man I have ever
climbed with. So it was agreed and, leaving him seated on the platform, I
recommenced the ascent.

A few feet above the platform the ridge narrowed into an awkward bank
of snow overlying a length of slabs tilted downwards to the east and
projecting as a thin flake over the precipice to the west. Along the uppermost
edge of the slabs the snow had melted, leaving a high bank of snow on the
one hand and on the other a drop so sheer there was nothing a falling object
could touch for some hundreds of feet. The strange little path thus exposed,
which was never more than two feet wide, continued unbroken for twenty or
thirty yards and reminded me of the ledge on the Grepon euphemistically
known as the “ Route aux Bicyclettes.”

At the end of the ledge was a low wall and beyond this broken rocks and
snow leading to the foot of our bete noire, the step in the ridge. I should
estimate this as 150 feet high, and at first sight it appeared a formidable
obstacle. It was built up of horizontally stratified rocks and overhung in
places, but the fact that the strata were well defined and dipped if anything
slightly inwards encouraged the hope that perhaps a way could be made up it
from ledge to ledge. A direct approach from the ridge crest was out of the
question, but im-mediately to the right of the step was a shallow, ill-defined
little gully, and it occurred to me that if this were climbed a horizontal
traverse could be made across the face of the cliff to a point whence the
upper portion was practicable.

To my relief the snow of the gully was in excellent order, and though so
steep that I halted to rest at every step with my chest against it, the fact that I
could drive in my ice-axe to its head gave me a feeling of security. After
about 100 feet of this arduous work I was able to step to the left on to a
ledge a few inches in width which traversed the cliff more or less
horizontally. Edging sideways along this under some impassable overhangs,
I reached a point where a series of rock leaves projected from the face.
Although fragile in appearance they were perfectly firm, and climbing
slowly up them with some halts for breath I presently found myself at the
top of the step. The worst had been accomplished — or so I thought — and I
shouted joyfully to Peter, who was now busying himself with his camera.

Above the step the going was easy until I came to a slab about 25 feet
high. There was no avoiding this and it had to be climbed. There were few
holds, but a tongue of snow well frozen to the rock afforded an excellent

purchase for the ice-axe, and by utilising the friction of my knees I was soon
at the top.

After this the climbing was more laborious than difficult, and with
nothing to occupy my full attention I realised how weary I was and that
every step involved a conscious effort of will-power. As I have discovered
on many occasions, easy climbing can seem more fatiguing than difficult
climbing, though, of course, this only applies up to a certain point in
tiredness beyond which difficulties become insuperable owing to sheer
muscular weakness.

Going very slowly, with halts to rest every few steps, I approached the
most remarkable obstacle I have encountered on a mountain. By some
extraordinary geological chance a boulder the size of a cottage had wedged
itself athwart the ridge. There was no climbing over the top of it, for it
overhung, nor could I see a way of clambering over a vertical wall of rock to
one side, really a tongue of the boulder. Had I been climbing in the Alps I
might have scaled this wall, but it meant an upward pull on the arms alone,
and for this I had insufficient strength; gymnastics are not possible over
23,000 feet. There was no hope of turning the obstacle to the left, for here
the precipice fell with appalling steepness, but there was one way — and it is
this that makes the obstacle unique in my recollection of Himalayan
climbing — there was a way under it.

The boulder was hollowed beneath and this hollow persisted from one
side to the other. The cave thus formed was perhaps five feet high at its
entrance, but it was more than half choked with ice, leaving just room for a
man prepared to crawl. Stooping down, I looked through a little funnel of
glistening black ice and perceived a gleam of light at the far end. It was a
last hope and I crawled inside.

Describing these events now makes them seem straightforward enough,
but at the time they possessed a queer dreamlike quality which is consonant
with my former experience of severely difficult climbing at high altitudes. I
believe the absurdity of the situation must have struck me because I
remember halting my crawl to laugh aloud, but my laugh deteriorated into a
gasp; laughter is hard work at high altitudes.

I had hoped that the hole would end conveniently on the ridge above the
boulder, but this was too much to expect. It ended to one side — the side
overlooking the western precipice.

Crawling forwards, I looked out through the ice-encumbered exit. Once
again Fortune smiled. The precipice beneath was sheer, but there was a

ledge half hidden by snow and ice running forwards beneath the boulder
towards the ridge. The difficulty was to get out of the hole on to this ledge.
Having got my head and shoulders out, I twisted to the right until I could
grasp satisfactory hand-holds, then half pushed with my knees and half
pulled with my arms. For a moment my full weight came on my arms, then I
was in safety on the ledge. It sounds a sensational manoeuvre; at the time,
however, it seemed obvious and straightforward. But it was very exhausting,
and when, a minute later after a short pause, I regained the ridge I had to rest
before I could summon up the energy to continue.

As to the ridge immediately above the boulder I have the vaguest
recollection; I think it was easy snow and rock, but I do remember that the
snow was softer and more powdery than lower down. I remember too
looking up and seeing the summit apparently an immeasurable distance
away, just as the summit of Everest had appeared from over 28,000 feet in
1933.

Then to my dismay I came on yet another obstacle — a step in the ridge
some fifty feet high. Had I been, stronger I might have climbed this, for the
rocks, though steep, were broken, but I had no further strength for strenuous
rock-climbing and was now fast drawing on my last reserves of energy.

The alternative was a snow filled gully to the left. This lay on the south-
west face of the mountain and was exceedingly steep. At its base it narrowed
into what was virtually a chimney, but above it broadened out into a snow-
slope which I told myself must surely lead to the summit. It was the sole
alternative; the one breach in the topmost defences of the mountain.

Traversing horizontally to the left I entered the gully. Thank heavens it
was filled with snow, not ice, but deep soft powdery snow into which I sunk
almost to the knees. Fortunately there was well compacted snow beneath and
I was able to drive in my ice-axe to the head, which gave me a feeling of
security, especially when the surface layer poured off in loose streams and
hissed down the gully and out over the precipice.

Once or twice I was able to use rocks, including a little outcrop where the
gully broadened. It was funereal going; at every step I had to halt and rest
before I could muster sufficient energy for the next step.

As the gully broadened the angle of the slope lessened. I now saw the
ridge to my right; it was unbroken snow, but I did not venture too close to
the crest for fear of cornices. It ended at a point of snow, but I scarcely dared
believe that this was the summit. I trudged towards it. There was no cornice

and a few minutes later, at about 1.30 p.m., I sank down in the soft snow, the
Mana Peak beneath me, after the hardest solitary climb of my life.

For a minute or two I was too fatigued to do anything but sit breathing
heavily, blissfully conscious that whatever else befell me I had no longer to
lever myself uphill. Then as my speeding heart and lungs quieted I became
gradually conscious of my position and the view.

Since I left Peter I had been concerned with climbing and my whole
physical and nervous energy had been concentrated to that one end, but now
that the deadening work of hoisting the weight of my tired body uphill was
at an end my mental faculties were released from physical bondage. The one
concession of high alti-tudes is that as soon as the climber rests for any
length of time he is enabled to forget his physical weariness. To me that day
it was as though I had been led blind-fold up the mountain and that the
bandage had been removed on the summit. It was this more than any sense
of “conquest” or achievement that made my few minutes on the summit
unforgettable, so that if I live to be old and feeble I can still mount the
golden stairs of memory to inspiration and contentment.

The summit of the Mana Peak is the highest and southernmost point of an
undulating snow-ridge about 200 yards long which extends northwards in
the direc-tion of the group of peaks known as the Ibi Gamin. Kamet is
immediately to the west of this group, and the first object I saw when I had
recovered from my fatigue was its huge reddish pyramid, to which clung a
vast banner of cloud floating slowly westwards yet ever forming against the
mountain as it did so.

It would be easy to reel out a string of names of ranges, peaks, glaciers
and valleys, but to occupy the mind with trifling topographical details on the
summit of a great Himalayan peak is a petty anticlimax to weeks of
reconnaissance, strenuous work, and a final glorious scramble. On a
mountain-top time’s sands are grains of pure gold; must we then obscure
their brightness with a leaden mess of trifling detail? After Kamet I
remember clearly but one detail in all that enormous landscape, the plateau
of Tibet. I saw it to the east of the Ibi Gamin, a yellow strand laid beyond the
Himalayan snows, shadowed here and there with glowing clouds poised in a
profound blue ocean like a fleet of white-sailed frigates. For the rest there
were clouds and mountains; clouds alight above, blue cavemed below over
the deeper blue of valleys, citadels of imper-meable vapour spanning the
distant foothills, and mountains innumerable — snow-mountains, rock-
moun-tains, mountains serene and mountains uneasy with fanged, ragged
crests, beautiful mountains and terrible mountains, from the ranges of Nepal

to the snows of Badrinath and the far blue ridges of Kulu and Lahoul. Would
that Peter had been there to share this with me.

But of all my memories, distinct or vague, one memory stands pre-
eminent: the silence. I have remarked before this silence of the high
mountains. How many who read this have experienced silence? I do not
mean the silence of the British countryside or even of the northern hills and
moorlands, for though we may strain our ears and hear nothing there is
always life not far distant. I mean the silence of dead places where not even
a plant grows or a bird dwells. That day there was no wind, not the lightest
breathing of the atmosphere, and I knew a silence such as I have never
known before. I felt that to shout or talk would be profane and terrible, that
this silence would shatter in dreadful ruin about me, for it was not the silence
of man or earth but the silence of space and eternity. I strained my ears and
heard — nothing. Yet, even as I strained, I was conscious of something
greater than silence, a Power, the presence of an absolute and immutable
Force, so that I seemed on the very boundary of things knowable and things
unknowable. And because I have felt this more than once before on the high
mountains I know that death is not to be feared, for this Force is a part of
Heaven and a part of us; how else should we be aware of it? From it we have
been evolved; into it we quietly and peacefully return.

The minutes passed. Presently I mustered up the effort needed to take
some photographs; then I began the descent.

The ascent had been hard work j the descent was absurdly easy by
comparison. My strength returned with each downward step and once again
I realised, as I had realised on Everest, that altitude alone is respon-sible for
exhaustion on high Himalayan peaks. To judge from the speed at which I
descended the diffi-culties of the Mana Peak are also primarily dependent on
the altitude, but it was a steep descent nevertheless and the reverse passage
of the hole under the boulder, while being considerably easier, especially as
I discovered more holds, was awkward, and so was the slab below it and the
big step in the ridge.

An hour later I rejoined Peter, who had regained his strength so well that
he had scrambled about to take photographs and had ascended the ridge for a
short distance. No time was to be lost if we were to get back to camp before
dark and we descended without delay.

AH went well till we turned off the ridge on to the ice-slope, but here we
had to recut many steps which had been damaged by the sun and lost much
valuable time in regaining the lower snow-ridge. Such work coming after a

great climb is particularly irksome and it is on such occasions that risks are
taken and accidents occur, but Peter rose nobly to the task and deepened the
steps with unfaltering precision.

At last we were on the plateau. The afternoon mists had risen and we
passed along the crest of Peak 21,500 feet in a desultory hailstorm. Before
turning off it we shouted to the porters, who should be awaiting our arrival at
the camp, in the hope that they would hear us and prepare some tea and were
relieved to hear a faint response.

At 6.15 the camp loomed out of the mist and a few minutes later hot tea
was moistening our parched throats. How good it was j no nectar is more
revivifying at the end of a hard day on the mountains.

A few minutes’ rest, while the men packed up, and we set off once more,
down the ridge to the Zaskar Pass. At last the snow and ice were behind us;
no longer was it necessary to place each foot with exact care ; through the
dusky mist we moved shadow-like along the easy scree ridge. Already the
strenuous events of the day were in the remote past, no longer linked to us
by any thread of difficulty or danger. Trudging along, very weary now,
through the swift-gathering darkness we came at 7.15 to the camp.

So ended the longest, grandest and hardest mountain climb of our lives.

CHAPTER XXII
NILKANTA

ON August 13th, the day following the ascent of the Mana Peak, we
reached Badrinath after a fatiguing march from the Zaskar Pass, and there
remained for the next two days comfortably ensconced in the little rest-
house.

Kedamath and Badrinath are the two goals of the pilgrims who throng
annually to the Himalayas to worship the five deities of Hinduism, Siva,
Vishnu, Devi, Genesa and the Sun, Kedamath being dedicated to Siva, the
Destroyer, and Badrinath to Vishnu. The Rawal, or High Priest, of Badrinath
is a Brahman from Southern India, and the temple of which he is the keeper,
a little building with a gilded roof, contain 1 : the image of Vishnu carved in
black atone. From the temple a flight of steps, polished smooth by the feet of
innumerable pilgrims, leads down to the Alaknanda River in which the
devout dip themselves, holding on to ring bolts to prevent the swift torrent
from sweeping them away. There is also a hot spring believed to be very

efficacious, especially every twelfth year when the planet Jupiter is in the
sign of Aquarius.

Architecturally Badrinath is a mean little place, being composed for the
most part of single-storied houses which display a wealth of corrugated iron
roofing, and its situation in a barren boulder-strewn valley almost
completely destitute of trees adds still further to its ugliness. Its greatest
interest lies in its proximity to the source of the Alaknanda River, the “true
source” of the Ganges, which issues from the Bhagat Kharak and Satopanth
Glaciers a few miles distant, though a nearer and remarkable waterfall is
acknowledged to be the stream mentioned in the Skanda Purana, “where the
Ganges falls from the foot of Vishnu like the slender thread of a lotus
flower.”

The pilgrimage is not undertaken merely for abstract religious reasons but
in many cases as deliberate self-immolation and penance for sins, and this
accounts for the presence of many ascetics, Yogis, Bairagis and Sanyas. The
Yogis come from all classes of the community, from the noblest Rajput
families to the lowest castes, and having renounced everything material,
except the barest necessities of life, strive towards Nirvana through
mortifying the flesh. To what extent a man is justified in severing all social
ties and battening on the charity of his neighbours in pursuit of selfish, yet in
one sense selfless, ends, is only one of the innumerable social and religious
problems of India. At least he sets an example in simplicity of living, the
secret of earthly happiness.

Only one great mountain is visible from Badrinath, Nilkanta. This peak is
associated in Hindu mysticism and mythology with Siva, for Nilkanta or
Nilakantha, the Blue-necked, is an allusion to the god whose matted locks
are represented by the tom glaciers and eternal snows. It is easy to
understand why Nilkanta should be- held in superstitious awe and reverence
by the pilgrims, for there is no more majestic and awe-inspiring peak of its
height in the world. It rises 21,640 feet above the sea and its summit is only
five miles from Badrinath, 10,159 feet. Like a Matterhorn it stands alone and
has no rival within eight miles, and is beautifully proportioned, being
pyramidal in form with a graceful ice-clad summit whence sweep down
three great ridges, of which the south-east terminates in the-Alaknanda
Valley at an elevation of only 7,000 feet.

My first view of the mountain was as dramatic as it beautiful. The Kamet
Expedition, after exploring the Arwa Valley, descended to Badrinath en
route to Ranikhet. We knew that Nilkanta is visible from Badrinath but were
fmstrated by monsoon mists from seeing it during the da/. But as we dined

the mists cleared, revealing it full in the light of the rising moon. Of many
moonlit views I have seen the snows of this glorious peak framed between
the dark walls of a gorge was the most beautiful.

Peter had also seen the mountain and it was agreed before I left England
that we should attempt the ascent. Such views of the mountain as we had
already seen had convinced us that the only possible line of approach was
via the south-east ridge. Though the longest of the three ridges it seemed
likely that it was accessible from the Khiraun Valley which bifurcates with
the Alaknanda Valley four miles below Badrinath and which, as far as we
knew, had not been entered previously by a European. If the crest of the
ridge could be gained at a point within reasonable distance of the summit
there appeared to be a possibility of climbing the mountain.

Our first concern at Badrinath was to engage some more porters. So far
we had managed with our five Darjeeling men, but they and we had carried
very heavy loads, and for peaks such as Nilkanta, which are Avithin easy
reach of villages, the ultra-small party loses its point and inadequate
porterage merely complicates an expedition. So word was sent to Mana and
soon a number of Marcha Bhotias arrived from that village. Several had
“chits” from former expeditions and one produced a recommendation given
him by Mr. C. F. Meade in 1913. We engaged four of them, picturesque
fellows with wild locks and dressed in a weird and Wonderful assortment of
costumes.

Two days passed restfully and pleasantly during which time we received
generous gifts of fruit, vegetables and sweetmeats from Pandit Neryan Dutt,
who befriended the Kamet Expedition in 1931, whilst I must record here the
courtesy of the postmaster who, although suffering from malaria, put himself
out to further our arrange-ments.

By the evening of August 15th our “banderbasf ’ was complete and we left
next morning after seeing over Pandit Neryan Dutt’s garden, which contrives
to exist and flourish miraculously in this stony valley and includes fruit
trees, although snow lies for several months of the year and winter
temperatures must fall well below zero.

Unfortunately the weather was bad. Since we arrived at Badrinath rain
had fallen almost continuously and the monsoon was now very heavy. There
is no doubt that we should have remained in the north of Garhwal near the
Tibetan frontier, where the monsoon air-current is sheered away by the dry
winds of the Tibetan plateau, but we were encouraged to attempt Nilkanta by

the success of the Anglo-American Expedi-tion which succeeded in
climbing Nanda Devi during the height of the monsoon season.

The bungalow at Pandukeshwar is four miles south of the Khiraun Valley
but it was necessary to spend a night there in order to pick up some more
food and equipment as well as leave certain items which were not needed for
Nilkanta. This done, we set off on the following mom-ing, August 17th for
the mountain.

Retracing our way up the Alaknanda Valley we crossed the Alaknanda
River by a primitive little bridge, built however on the correct cantilever
principle, and entered the Khiraun Valley. The impression we had gathered
from the map was of a steep-sided valley narrowing into a gorge, for
Nilkanta rises 10,000 feet out of the valley in about two horizontal miles, a
steep angle even in a country of tremendous mountainsides. Such, however,
is by no means the case and on entering the valley we found ourselves amid
fields and woodlands watered by clear-running streams.

For a little distance we followed a rough shepherd’s track but presently
lost it and had to force our way through a wilderness of pink-flowered
balsam (Impatient Roylei) growing fully eight feet tall. Had it not been for
the labour we might have appreciated the beauty of these flowers which
covered acres of the valley floor in a sheet of bloom; as it was, we were
heartily glad to regain the path, dripping with sweat after the unusual
exercise.

Crossing the valley torrent,, which by its size suggested a considerable
glacier system, we climbed a steep track to a hamlet set amid cultivated
fields on a sloping shelf of the valley-side. Europeans were evidently
something of a curiosity here and I nearly scared a small girl out of her wits
when I attempted to take her photograph.

We camped half a mile beyond this village at a height of about 9,000 feet,
a pleasant peaceful spot within sound of several streams.

Rain fell in the night and the morning of August i8fh was dull and misty.
After wading through dripping vegetation, which included thistles fully
seven or eight feet high, we traversed forest-clad hillsides, then climbed
steeply up the northern side of the valley. The local men were so slow that
we began to wonder whether we should ever get on to our mountain. Every
boulder, ledge and terrace was a potential halting-place for a prolonged
puffing at their pipe, which had to be passed from hand to hand, and even
Wangdi soon abandoned all hope of persuading them to move until the ritual
was ceremoniously and inflexibly fulfilled; this was their method of travel

and the immemorial customs of the country were not to be violated by
impatient Europeans.

To judge from its vegetation, the Khiraun Valley receives an abundant
rainfall and enjoys a warm climate due to the proximity of the deep
Alaknanda Valley, which is a natural funnel for the monsoon current, and I
noticed oaks growing at between 11,000 feet and 12,000 feet, an unusual
height for this tree. There were also many plants, including an annual blue
gentian (G. tonella) which a week later covered the upper slopes with
innumerable blooms, and the curious woolly spires of a saussurea.

At length, and quite unexpectedly, we arrived at a most beautiful alp,
hundreds of acres of perfect turf grazed over by flocks of sheep and goats.
There was a stone shepherd’s shelter and the shepherd came forward to greet
us, a soldierly looking fellow who told us that he had served for ten years
with the Garhwal Rifles and that we were the first Europeans he had ever
seen in the valley.

We camped on the alp and it would be difficult to imagine a more
delightful spot for, as Peter remarked, good turf is rare in Garhwal and here
were hundreds of acres of fertile meadows where we had anticipated finding
steep and barren hillsides. Indeed it was difficult to imagine that we were on
the slopes of one of the steepest and most formidable peaks in the Central
Himalayas, especially as we had seen nothing of it as yet owing to mist.

Next morning we awoke to hear the patter of rain on our tents. Mist
shrouded the hillsides but the shepherd accompanied us some distance to
direct us to a higher alp. After scaling about 1,500 feet of grassy hillside we
traversed horizontally and eventually came to a little shelf “with plenty of
dwarf rhododendrons at hand for fuel, whilst juniper was not more than half
an hour away. As we were unable to see more than a few yards owing to
mist and were quite unable to estimate our position in relation to the south-
east ridge, of which we had seen nothing, we decided to camp, having
estimated our height as being close on 15,000 feet.

So dense was the mist that when Peter ventured away from the camp on a
tour of inspection he lost his bearings and only found his way back with
difficulty ; such dense and persistent mist is rare in the Himalayas and for all
we could see of our surroundings we might have been camped on an English
fell-side.

The mist cleared from our vicinity at nightfall, revealing the Khiraun
Valley, and eastwards, far beyond the Alaknanda Valley, the dim forms of
Gauri Parbat and Hathi Parbat, the massive bulk of Dunagiri and the thin

keen peak of Nanda Devi. For a minute we gazed at these great mountains,
then, instinctively, our eyes passed upwards. Immediately above the camp
was a hillside, its wet herbage white and frosty in the moonlight, ending in a
dark shoulder ; above and beyond the shoulder a slender ribbon of snow
tailed upwards into the stars — Nilkanta.

The following morning was fine but did not appear likely to remain so for
long, and at 6.30 we set out on a reconnaissance which would, we hoped,
determine whether or not we could reach the crest of the south-east ridge,
and if so whether the ridge afforded a practicable route to the summit.

The hillside was unexpectedly easy and after mounting over grass and
boulders we approached a small glacier descending into the Khiraun Valley.
As this was apparently uncrevassed and the snow was old and well-
compacted, we proceeded to cross it, but had not gone far when we came to
an unpleasant bottle-mouthed hole of unknown depth which had remained
invisible until we were within a yard or two of it. After this we did what we
should have done before, roped together, and without further incident
crossed the remainder of the glacier to a broken rock face leading up to the
crest of the ridge. The rocks were not in the least difficult and presently we
stood on the ridge.

Considering the general angle from which Nilkanta rises from the Khiraun
Valley we were not surprised to find that the ridge was very steep; at the
same time it was broken up in its lowermost portion into a compli-cated
mass of rock pinnacles: could these pinnacles be outflanked and, if so, was
the ridge above them less broken and complicated? Only through practical
trial could we determine this and we decided to push forward with our
reconnaissance as far as was possible in the day.

Immediately above us the ridge broadened out to form a commodious
camping site; then, after continuing almost horizontally for another hundred
yards, sprang upwards towards the first of the rock pinnacles. Seen en face
the rocks appeared very difficult; actually they were well broken up and we
preceded unroped. It was an enjoyable scramble for, although mists had
again gathered and there seemed every prospect of a snowstorm, the weather
was windless and warm.

Climbing rapidly, we followed the ill-defined ridge crest for a short
distance, then traversed to the right above the depths of a gully, stepped
round a comer, and scrambled up a series of slabs and ledges inter-spersed
with screes, steering as well as we could in the mist for a point on the ridge
crest above the initial group of pinnacles.

After several hundred feet of this work a fault in the cliff tempted us still
further to the right along a ledge, but this proved a mistake as the ledge
petered out in an impassable precipice, so retracing our steps we climbed
directly upwards and presently gained the ridge crest above the more
formidable of the lowermost pinnacles. The rock here was mostly firm and
plentifully supplied with holds and we progressed rapidly over a minor
pinnacle, descended from it into a gap, and climbed up to the right of the
ridge over broken ground towards the next pinnacle. And here we
encountered the first serious difficulty.

The pinnacle we were aiming for was thin and sharp and the gap beyond it
deep. We decided that it must be outflanked if possible. To the west was a
narrow gully leading down to broken rocks but it was an unpleasant place,
loose and with a mixture of grit and snow resting on slabs. The alternative
was a traverse on the east face. The rock here was firmer but the climbing,
technically speaking, was more exposed and difficult, and we had to descend
greasy rocks down and round a nearly vertical comer overhanging a
terrifically steep gully cleaving the east face of the mountain.

After this came a long stretch of easy rocks and once more progress was
rapid ; indeed the climbing on the whole had been much easier than
anticipated, though the route-finding throughout had been tricky and we
were lucky to have discovered at a first attempt a comparatively easy breach
in the lower defences of the mountain.

But Nilkanta had a surprise in store, and we had not advanced far when
there rose before us a thin and elegant pinnacle with sheer sides falling into
unknown depths and so formidable in appearance that it seemed our
reconnaissance had come to a premature end.

At such moments it is a sound plan to stop and A at, for rest and food have
an optimistic effect on a moun-taineer, but in this instance the more we
stared at this hard-faced sentinel of the ridge the less we liked it.

One thing was in our favour, the rock. The best that Chamonix can muster
is no better than the clean-cut granite of this part of the ridge.

For the first rope length all went well and the climbing while steep was
more strenuous than difficult. Then we came to a little comer immediately
under an over-hanging slice of rock. It was only twenty-five feet from the
crest, but there was no climbing the overhang. To the left ran a ledge which
appeared to tail out in the precipice; but to the right there seemed just a
chance that we might work across the face of the pinnacle and regain the
ridge beyond it.

Well held by Peter — the belays for the rope were splendid throughout this
part of the climb — I edged along an outward sloping gangway and after a
delicate traverse to the right and an-awkward movement round a comer,
made principally on the hands, and a further traverse, reached a little recess
under an overhang beyond the pinnacle. The only hope of regaining the
ridge was to climb a curiously grooved slab to the left. The holds were
sloping the wrong way, but by getting my feet on the slab and lying back
with my hands grasping an edge — in technical parlance a “lay-back” — I was
able to work my way up, a very exhausting manoeuvre at nearly 19,000 feet
which I could not have done without the climbing and acclimatisation to
altitude of the past few weeks.

Twenty-five feet more of steep climbing, this time on good holds, and I
reached the crest of the ridge above the pinnacle which proved to be more of
a step on the ridge than an isolated point.

Peter joined me, and in so doing douched with cold water any little vanity
I might have felt at overcoming a difficult obstacle by loitering negligently
up the rocks. However, on such occasions it is possible to repair injured
pride by reflecting that there is a right and a wrong end to a climbing rope.

The ridge now continued almost horizontally for a short distance, then
rose abmptly in another step formed by a wall several hundred feet high, of
which the lowermost 200 feet consisted of a belt of very steep slabs.

Here in all probability was the cmx of the climb. We could not tell what
lay above, but hoped that once up this step, if it were practicable, we should
find ourselves on the upper snow- and ice-slopes of the mountain.

There was no time for a further reconnaissance for the afternoon was well
advanced, and after examining carefully this next problem we began the
descent con-vinced that we must contrive to pitch a camp as near as possible
to the foot of the step, though, as we had already agreed, it was beyond the
scope of our small party to convoy laden porters up the difficult place we
had just climbed: it would mean fixing ropes and indulging in “siege tactics”
for which we were ill-equipped and incidentally had no intention of
undertaking.

In the hope of finding an easier alternative route past the pinnacle we
explored downwards to the west and there, as luck would have it, discovered
that the ledge I had rejected on the way up was a fraud and continued on out
of sight round a comer to end in easy rocks. We had put ourselves to a great
deal of un-necessary trouble by selecting the other and much more difficult
route. Nevertheless, it was a sensational little causeway. We had to crawl

along a narrow sloping shelf over as sheer a drop as any seeker of the
sensational could wish to experience and then lower ourselves on to some
footholds and in spread eagle fashion edge round a comer.

The lower traverse and the slimy corner were also avoided by the gully
we had looked down, but this, though technically easier, was an unpleasant
alternative as the rocks were loose and covered with a treacherous mixture
of snow and grit.

For the rest, the descent was uneventful until we came to the complicated
hillside above the camp, where the mist was so dense that we could see only
a few yards.

Every now and then we paused to shout in the hope of attracting the
porters’ attention. Our shouts were heard and answered, but even so it was
difficult to find the camp, and when at length we reached it, the light was
rapidly failing.

The weather was in a sullen mood and it was no sur-prise when heavy rain
set in soon after our arrival. But we could hardly gmmble ; whatever
Nilkanta had in store for us, we had enjoyed a splendid day’s
mountaineering and we celebrated the occasion with a feast of “Maggi”
soup, mutton, potatoes, onions, delicious wild rhubarb gathered near the
camp and “Ovaltine,” after which a certain bottle husbanded by Peter at
Pandukeshwar circulated steadily between the tents.

It is seldom that bad weather fits in with a plan on a mountain, but heavy
rain next day not only offered no temptation to push up a camp but enabled
one of the local men to descend to Pandukeshwar for another pair of boots
for Peter who had lost many nails from his present pair. Still, if I had to
choose where to spend an “off day,” I would not select a small and leaky
tent battered ceaselessly by torrential rain.

Fortunately, Peter had plenty of reading matter and he loaned me “Dr.
Johnson.” As I lay in my sleeping-bag listening to the dreary sound of the
rain on the canvas and occasionally making vain attempts to check a steady
drip on to my sleeping-bag, I tried to picture the worthy Doctor. Under
similar circumstances would he have written something such as this?

SIR,

I address you from within the miserable confines of a tent, a leaky,
plagued structure into which a proportion of moisture finds its way with a
scurrilous persistency. This inclemency of the elements is as irksome as it is

irritating and taxes considerably the moral fortitude while imposing
discomfort on the human frame. In a word, Sir, it is shrewish weather and
foully damp.

The rain continued until the afternoon of the 22nd, and the temperature
fell sharply, so that when the mists cleared the peaks showed heavily
plastered with freshly fallen snow.

The following morning was bright and as further inactivity was
thoroughly distasteful we decided to push up the camp to the site we had
already noted, taking with us the five Darjeeling men and three Mana men,
Kharak Singh, Mangal Singh and Nater Singh.

The Mana men jibbed at crossing the little glacier, except for Nater Singh,
whom we had already marked out as exceptionally keen and willing, and it
was some time before Peter’s fluent Urdu could persuade them to continue.

Several inches of snow had fallen and this and stones had to be cleared
away before level platforms could be made for the tents. Meanwhile the
weather quickly deteriorated; snow fell heavily and the atmosphere both in
gloom and dampness did its best to emulate an English November day.

The camp having been pitched the Mana men were sent down, after which
we settled into our damp sleeping-bags to continue a dreary and apparently
useless vigil.

Fortunately the snow did not accumulate deeply on the rocks and under
the influence of the sun next morning melted so quickly that we decided to
push forward our next camp.

It was essential to load the men lightly for steep rock-climbing and we cut
down equipment to the minimum. Thus we made rapid progress, climbing
for the sake of speed-and convenience in two parties widely separated, so
that the second was in no danger from stones dis-lodged by the first.

But the dice were still loaded against us, and a heavy snowstorm broke
before we reached the awkward slimy corner of the first difficult pinnacle,
quickly covering the rocks with slush. There was nothing for it but to camp,
as it was out of the question to allow the men to return unaccompanied in
such conditions from any-where beyond this point.

There was no semblance of a ledge on the steep and broken mountainside,
but after an hour’s work a little platform was built up just large enough for
our single tent. This done, the porters returned to the lower camp, leaving us
on our damp and uncomfortable little eyrie.

My memories of this camp are exclusively of dampness and discomfort.
The reader of travel books expects and demands that the traveller should
endure hardship and discomfort; but these make a weary catalogue and I will
content myself by remarking that the tent leaked freely, that our sleeping-
bags were wet, and that the only means by which we could dry our
under-clothing was to sleep in it. Is it not a strange thing for men to endure
such discomforts for the sake of climbing a mountain? I have often asked
this of myself, but have never been able to find an answer. Let there be no
mistake; the true explorer or mountaineer derives no feeling of superiority
over his fellow-men from his achievements; his “conquests” are within
himself and over himself alone.

A space of six and a half feet by four feet, when occupied by two men and
an assortment of foods, food utensils and cooking apparatus, tends to
become a trifle cramped and is not conducive to restful sleep. In such
circumstances it is a major folly to broach a tin of condensed milk and
expect what is left to remain within the tin, and when next morning came the
sight of the tent floor afforded convincing testimony as to the volatile
qualities of this substance. It was no hardship, therefore, to wriggle out of
our steam-filled sleeping-bags and after a melancholy breakfast set off on
what we realised could only be a forlorn-hope attempt on the summit.

The sun was shining brightly when we started and the view from our lofty
perch ranged from Kamet and the Mana Peak to Dunagiri and Nanda Devi,
but we had no illusions left as to the unsettled state of the weather or the
rapidity with which a fine morning deteriorates during the monsoon season.

The condition of the mountain was now far worse than it had been before
and we had a foretaste of what to expect when, instead of climbing round the
steep comer of the initial pinnacle, we elected to descend the narrow gully,
where snow several inches deep and frozen stones and grit made a
disagreeable and dangerous combination. We moved with the greatest care
and were unanimous in condemning the place when at length we reached the
safety of the gap beyond the pinnacle.

After this the climbing was easier despite the freshly fallen snow on the
rocks and we made good progress over the thin pinnacle to the foot of the
step in the ridge.

Already the weather was breaking. Within an hour the brilliant morning
had been snuffed out by fast-gathering mists and the great crags above us
loomed cold and hostile through the thickening vapour. Our attempt was
doomed to failure; the condition of the mountain alone warranted that

assumption; still, we determined at all events to climb the step and
recon-noitre as far as possible towards the summit.

If the rocks of the thin pinnacle were firm and de-lightful to climb, the
rocks at the foot of the step were the exact reverse, for here we found a flaky
pastry-like substance. Moving one at a time and very carefully we edged
across a series of rickety ledges, then clambered upwards to a sloping scree-
covered shelf which traversed the band horizontally. The belt of rotten rock
ended here and above the shelf were firm slabs broken here and there into
projecting crags and seamed with incipient gullies.

Our first attempt to climb the slabs failed. Then we attempted to follow a
shallow scoop-like gully. This quickly steepened into unclimbablc rocks, but
there seemed just a chance of forcing a route out of the gully over the slabs
to the left.

It was a bad place. Peter had no belay worth speak-ing of and was
standing on small holds as I slowly worked my way out across the slabs. The
climbing reminded me of the harder routes on Lliwedd in North Wales; there
were the same small slabby holds and unrelenting exposure except that on
Nilkanta the climber «who “ comes off’ falls, not hundreds, but thousands of
feet, not that the result in either case is likely to be different.

There was one particularly awkward place where a long step on tiny toe-
holds had to be made. I hesitated a long time before making it for the reason
that to return would be even more difficult; however, T decided to “bum my
boats” in the hope that the climbing would become easier beyond. The
climbing did not become easier; indeed, after mnning out about sixty feet of
rope, I found further advance impossible. I remember very well clinging to
the tiny mgosities of the rock and wishing devoutly that instead of nailed
boots I had on felt-soled shoes. Then, at this critical juncture, when I knew
that retreat was inevitable, a terrific hailstorm burst on us.

One moment the rocks were warm and moderately dry, the next they were
cold and streaming with slush and water. So violent was the storm that soon
our situation became dangerous owing to the torrents of hail that poured
down the slabs.

I have a vivid recollection of my retreat, but it must have been equally
painful for Peter, insecurely placed as he was and powerless to check a fall.

Soon my fingers lost sensation on the slush-covered holds, but there was
no opportunity to warm them, nor was it possible to wear gloves when
handling such small holds. The stride was the worst, as I had to rely on wet
finger-holds which I was totally incapable of feeling, but it was done at last

and I rejoined Peter thankfully, after one of the nastiest bits of rock climbing
of my experience.

The hailstorm ended a few minutes later. There was one last possibility of
climbing the step, by a line to the right of our last line. The rocks here were
steeper, but they were more broken, and this time we were successful in
forcing a route after a difficult and exposed climb.

The upper portion of the steep consisted of broken slabs and snow on
which we were able to move both together for the most part. Making rapid
progress, though we were both feeling tired after our strenuous efforts, we
scrambled to the .crest of a conspicuous point which forms the uppermost
limit of the step. Here we rested and lunched.

There was no question of proceeding further. We were fully 2,000 feet
below the summit of the mountain, the weather was against us, the day well
advanced, and the mountain in impossible condition : at this height, which
cannot have been more than 19,500 feet, fully a foot of new snow was lying,
and higher the conditions were manifestly worse.

From our position a snow-ridge rose parabolically to a point on the ridge
beyond which another snow-ridge swept up to the foot of another and, as far
as we could judge, very formidable step. If this last could be climbed the
summit should be accessible via snow- and ice-slopes.

There is no doubt that we had under-estimated the length and difficulty of
the south-east ridge. To climb Nilkanta another camp or possibly two camps
will be necessary, one at our highest point and another above or below the
final step. To carry up camps over rocks such as we had encountered will be
no easy task, and a week of perfect weather may be required for the job.

But whatever the trials and difficulties of the route the prize will be well
worth while and the climber who eventually treads the crest of this peak will
be conscious of having climbed one of the most beautiful peaks of its
elevation in the Himalayas.

Much splendid mountaineering aw : aits the climber who, sick and tired of
high altitudes and the spirit of nationalism and competition which surrounds
the highest summits of the world with an atmosphere more stifling than the
oxygenless air, turns his attention to peaks such as Nilkanta. At moderate
elevations he is able not only to test himself to the uttermost of his strength
and skill, but to appreciate the beauties of Nature and enjoy the same thrills
that the pioneers of Alpine mountaineering enjoyed. It will be a happy day
for Himalayan mountaineering when the “conquest” of high altitudes is
achieved.

We returned to camp drenched by hail, rain, sleet and snow. There was
nothing further to be done, and the following morning we signalled to the
porters at the lower camp to ascend and carry down the camp, which they
did so expeditiously that we were able to descend the same day to the lower
alp. Next day we descended to Pandukeshwar and on August 28th arrived at
Joshimath.

CHAPTER XXIII
DUNAGIRI

AFTER Nanda Devi, the undisputed goddess of the Central Himalayas, one
of the finest peaks in the group of mountains between the Milam and Dhauli
Valleys is Dunagiri, 23,184 feet, which is situated to the north-west of the
Nanda Devi basin. For many years past it has attracted the attention of
mountaineers, and there is no grander sight in Garhwal than its ice-clad
summit soaring in a tremendous sweep out of the Dhauli Valley which, at
the confluence of the Dhauli and Rishi Rivers, is only 6,170 feet above the
sea.

Dr. T. G. Longstaff, who in 1907 crossed the Bagini Pass to the east of
Dunagiri, was of the opinion that the mountain was accessible from the
south. Acting on this opinion Messrs. Oliver and D. Campbell attempted to
reach the south-west ridge from the west, but found all approach barred by
precipices and hanging glaciers. It was left to E. E. Shipton to find a route to
the ridge from the east in 1936, and to reach the shoulder of the mountain at
a height of about 22,000 feet accompanied by one Sherpa porter. From this
shoulder knife-like ice-edges lead towards the final peak which is distant
nearly one mile.

Peter was naturally anxious to attempt once again this splendid mountain,
and it was the lodestone which drew us south after our failure to climb
Nilkanta. We had hoped also to attempt the ascent of the unclimbed East
Peak of Nanda Devi, but as there was no time for this we resolved to devote
the whole of our energies to Dunagiri.

The mountain is more difficult of approach than Nilkanta, and the climber
must work his way up the great Rishi Valley before entering the Rhamani
Valley which leads up to the south-east face. We estimated that three weeks’
coolie food, weighing about 350 lbs., would be required, and to carry this
eight local porters were engaged, including Nater Singh, who had proved his
worth on Nilkanta. As it was necessary to retain two men for work on the
mountain, Nater Singh and a youth named Dharam Singh were selected and

provided with boots and other equipment. Dharam Singh, who to judge from
his appearance had more Tibetan than Indian blood in him, had served with
the Nanda Devi Expedition, and had become possessed of an ice-axe of
which he was inordinately proud. In build and manner he suggested an
experienced mountaineer, but in point of fact he was not, and though
invariably cheerful and willing, .proved the least competent of our new
recruits.

After some uncomfortable days and nights on Nilkanta, Joshimath seemed
a haven of rest and repose and the two days that we spent there were devoted
almost exclusively to eating and sleeping. It was an effort to tear ourselves
away from the dak bungalow, but on August 3ist we set off up the Dhauli
Valley.

We had hoped that the weather would improve, as it must do if we were to
stand the smallest chance of success, and there certainly did appear some
prospect of this when we left Joshimath.

At the village of Tapoban we had a stroke of luck in being able to
purchase seven eggs. Some eggs had been bought at Joshimath, but as half
of-them were bad we were taking no chances. Accordingly, a bowl of water
was requisitioned and the eggs tested: if they sank all was well, but if they
swam the reverse was the case. These proceedings .were watched by the
inhabitants of the village with the greatest curiosity and astonishment,
including the vendor, who obviously looked upon them as impugning his
good faith and the faith of his hens. Happily all sank. In addition to the eggs
we acquired an aged rooster and thus set up for one meal at least proceeded
cheerfully on our way.

Once again the weather was profligate, and rain set in later, so that we
arrived at the village of Lata damp and cheerless. There was no camping
ground and we pitched our tents on a path near the village. But we reckoned
without the cows coming home from the upper pastures and a melee ensued
in which the opposing forces were the cows, whose inflexible determination
was to proceed as they always had proceeded along the path, and ourselves,
who strove to make them realise the wisdom of by-passing a crowded
thoroughfare.

The inhabitants of Lata are cheerful, friendly people and soon called on us
with gifts of vegetables. Among them was an old Shikari who had
accompanied Dr. Longstaff in 1907 and Peter when he climbed Trisul
(1934) a charming old gentleman armed with an antique rifle which
projected through the medium of caps and gunpowder, an assortment of

ironmongery and stones. He was particularly anxious that we should assist
him in stalking a bear which had recently killed one of the cows of the
village, but as we had left our rifle at Joshimath we were unable to accept
this invitation ; no doubt he would be able to deal with it effectively if he
could get within close enough range for a blast of nails and pebbles. There
was also an impression abroad that I was a doctor and I was called on to
treat cases of conjunctivitis and blood-poisoning. On this, as on other
occasions, I was amazed at the implicit and touching faith in the Sahib. It
was no e telling my patients that they must go to the hospital at Joshimath to
be treated by the Indian doctor there; no, the Sahib was worth a thousand
Babu Doctors however well qualified.

During the night we were plagued by mosquitoes which, if not malarial at
this altitude, were so venomous that I woke next morning scarcely able to
see out of my eyes.

From Lata to the alp known as Lata Kharak a steep track scales 5,000 feet
of hillside, at first through dense sub-alpine vegetation, then between pines,
birches and rhododendrons. The morning was showery, but the weather
improved later and we spent the remainder of the day pottering about the
camp collecting seeds or gazing on the stupendous panorama of mist-
swathed ridges, deep blue valleys and the remote snows of Hathi Parbat
shining through windows in slow-moving columns of thundercloud.

Rain fell in the night, but the morning was fine. Our route lay along the
north-west side of the Lata Ridge to a grass pass south-west of Tolma Peak.
We now entered the Rishi Valley and at once had a foretaste of the next
three days’ travelling in a goat track which wound sinuously in and out of
gullies.

Before we had gone far the weather broke in a sharp hailstorm which
cleared as we breasted a ridge and saw at our feet the bright green alp of
Durashi. Down we went over slopes blue with gentians and frosted silver
with edelweiss, just in time to pitch the tents before hail and rain again
deluged the valley. Wet mists sur-rounded us for the remainder of the day,
but when night fell the stars shone out and through the clear air we saw the
twinkling light of a shepherd’s fire on the slopes of the Kuari Pass many
miles away.

We left early next morning and walked up slopes of grass and boulders to
the ridge we must cross to the alp, Dibrugheta. Immediately ahead, towering
from the jaws of the Rishi Valley, was Nanda Devi with light mists stationed
on its dark precipices. Small wonder that until Shipton and Tilman

penetrated the tremendous gorges of the valley to the in most sanctuary of
the goddess, this district was reputed locally to be the abode of demons and
dragons, for there can be no more awe-compelling scenery in the world than
the vista of gorges framing this glorious mountain.

The weather was perfect and we were able to enjoy to the full the beauties
of Dibrugheta which Dr. Longstaff described as a “horizontal oasis in a
vertical desert.” Our tents were pitched on a sward of flowers with forests
above and below, and in the background the sunlit slabs known as “The
Curtain”; a peaceful, beautiful place where we rested through the sunny
afternoon in lazy contentment.

Unhappily the fine weather did not last; rain fell during the night and we
set off next morning in mist and drizzle. In the dripping forest above the alp
we disturbed a black bear, who quickly made off. A red currant grows here,
but, like the Himalayan strawberry, it is almost tasteless. After climbing
some 1,500 feet we emerged from the forest on to a shoulder where I found
monkshood in seed, then traversed steep hillsides covered here and there in
juniper and berbetis ( 3 , aristata). There were also numerous flowers,
including lloydias, polentillas, anemones, gentians, saxifrages and andro-
saces. I noted the seed of nornocharis and was able to collect some when we
returned. There is no doubt that the Rishi Valley and the Nanda Devi basin
would well repay botanical exploration.

The Nanda Devi Expedition had made a w r ell-defmed track which we
followed without difficulty. Yet even so progress was slow, for the track was
seldom level and to travel one mile takes two or three hours in this valley
with its innumerable gullies and buttresses.

Two goats had been purchased; one had been slaughtered at Durashi, and
the survivor now accompanied us. It was a cause of much tribulation to the
man leading it, but all my sympathies were with it. Twice it escaped and was
recaptured with difficulty after an exciting scramble across the hillside.

Shortly after midday we came to two draughty caves where the Nanda
Devi Expedition had camped, but we were determined to make a longer
march, and Peter eventually persuaded the local men to continue despite a
good deal of grumbling.

Just beyond this place a- steep stream rushes down a series of slabby
scoops and fells. From sheer laziness we tried to cross too high instead of at
a safe and easy place a little lower. The agile Wangdi got over, but the next
man failed although assisted by an ice-axe. Then I tried. There was a small
hold in the middle of a smooth, water-wom slab, and I managed to get one

foot on it, but when I tried to raise myself my foot slipped and down I went.
Fortunately the stream narrowed into a scoop, and in this I wedged above a
drop of fully fifty feet with water cascading over me. I managed to force my
way up against the torrent until one of the men grasped my hand and
dragged me to safety, soaked to the skin, with one elbow skinned and feeling
something worse than a blithering idiot.

The remainder of the march was miserable, but I obtained a grain of
vicarious comfort in the torrential rain which was now falling; it was
impossible for me to become any wetter.

We found a camping place near a trickle of water and levelled tent
platforms on the steep hillside. Everything was damp and the tents being
muddy leaked like sieves. Our luck with the weather could scarcely be
worse, and conditions for the porters were wretched in the extreme as they
had no spare underclothing to change into; their cheerfulness under such
conditions is inspiring.

A supper of dhal (lentils) and rice curry made the world seem a better
place, and it became positively rosy after a jorum of whisky. The night that
followed is memorable to me above many nights. With us we had a two-
pound tin of black treacle. This had been drilled through the top with the
usual holes to allow of the treacle coming out and the air going in. The tin
was placed in my tent, but deliberately turned itself upside down arid oozed
all night over the floor, my sleeping-bag, mattress and sweaters. The last-
men-tioned article does not combine harmoniously with black treacle, and I
shall never forget the anguish on Nurbu’s face when he looked in next
morning.

It was a dull, sullen morning and snow was falling down to the 17,000-
foot level. For a few minutes there was a suspicion of sunlight, then,
inexorably, the mists shut down and rain began to fall.

The going was easy on the whole and we reached the entrance of the
Rhamani Valley earlier than expected. The mist made the way up this
difficult to find, but we ascended a gully and traversed hopefully along
hillsides considerably less steep than those of the Rishi Valley. Presently,
after crossing two streams, we came to a grass slope where there was a large
overhanging boulder, the ground beneath which showed evident signs of
former occupation. This was Shipton’s camping place and it was remarkable
that we should come across it after groping our way up the valley and over
complicated hillsides in a thick mist.

Here we camped. There was juniper handy and soon Ang Bao had
contrived to light a fire in the shelter of the boulder and brew tea. We next
dismissed the local men, with the exception of Nater Singh and Dharam
Singh, and settled down to make ourselves as comfortable as possible.

Any optimism we might have had as to climbing Dunagiri had long since
evaporated. It was now September 6th and since August i3th when we
arrived at Badrinath there had been only one completely fine day. There is
no doubt that had the Nanda Devi party experienced similar weather they
could not have succeeded, for snow had fallen every day, and the mountain
had been continuously plastered. Yet there is no reason to suppose that we
experienced especially bad monsoon weather, and mountaineers visiting
Garhwal during the monsoon season should keep as far north as possible
until the monsoon ends, as it usually does, in September.

Rain fell most of the night and as usual we dressed next morning in damp
clothing. Once again it was a day of continuous mist and rain, and as we had
little idea as to where we were we steered by Peter’s compass, making more
or less directly up the valley to begin with, then in the approximate direction
of Dunagiri. In good weather it would have been a delightful walk as we
passed many slopes and lawns bright with flowers, some of which were now
in seed, including allardias, yellow potentillas and primulas of the nivalis
section.

Then we made uphill by the side of a moraine. We could see little or
nothing and presently when sleet and snow fell heavily we decided to camp,
for there was no object in continuing on what might well prove to be a
wrong route to Dunagiri. Three men were retained and the other four sent
back to the base camp. As for the remainder of the day, my diary records
simply, “Rain, sleet, snow. Tent leaking.”

Six inches of snow fell in the night, but next morning when we looked out
of our tents the weather was clear, and we saw the long summit ridge of
Dunagiri, white and brilliant in the sun, peeping over a nearer ridge.

To reach the col at the foot of the south-west ridge we had to cross two
intermediate glaciers and ridges. Just beneath the crest of the first ridge we
had an inkling as to the snow to expect on the mountain when a little snow-
slope peeled off in a miniature slab avalanche. Tse Tendrup, who was
holding me on the rope from the ridge crest, apparently thought I was in
great danger (there was none as the slope was not fifty feet high and ended
in screes) and planting both heels in the snow pulled for all he was worth. A

volley of half- strangled curses was his sole reward for an action which, on
the face of it, was entirely praiseworthy.

The second ridge involved us in a steep descent ol some 300 feet, but at
length we stood on the glacier immediately beneath the slopes running up to
the col. Mists had again formed, but the day was warm and the snow soft
and unpleasant to tread. As far as we could see the best route to the col was
to one side of a wide and steep bulge of ice. At the foot of the slope was a
partially choked bergschnind which we crossed without difficulty. We had
progressed less than 200 feet and I, who was leading, was cautiously
prodding the snow with my ice-axe when there was a dull thump. We came
to a sudden halt; then, through the mist and above us, we heard the
unmistakable rushing sound of an avalanche. There was a slight hesitation,
then we turned and fled, making for the shelter of the ice bulge. It was a
nasty moment, for we could see nothing in the mist; only hear that ominous
grating rush of sliding snow. As we ran, balls of snow scampered past us,
nothing more.

The main body of the avalanche stopped just above our farthest point. It
was a small one, an affair of an inch or two of surface snow, scarcely enough
to have carried us down with it, much less buried us, but it gave us a fright
and with common accord we turned our backs on the slope and after some
little trouble found a camping place on the glacier, well protected from
avalanches by wide crevasses. The porters were then sent back to the lower
camp with instructions to return on the morrow with food, fuel and
equipment for the camp we had planned to pitch on the col.

It was a desolate situation. All about us was snow and ice, great crevasses,
frowning semes and the mist-wreathed precipices of Dunagiri. Our height
was about 19,000 feet, and as this is equal to approximately half
atmospheric pressure at sea-level, we found it impossible to cook potatoes
and after boiling them for over an hour gave them up as a bad job and ate
them hard.

There was a sharp frost during the night, and next morning we climbed
quickly up hard snow to the col. A biting wind was blowing across the crest,
but even this could not detract from the grandeur of the view. I know of few
situations where the climber is more conscious of his height. He stands on
the edge of a labyrinth of snow and ice, looking down into fertile valleys and
away over ranges of low hills towards the distant plains. No human brain
can take in the immense panorama, and it was almost a relief to turn to
objects more easily calculable: the glorious twin spires of Nanda Devi and
the terrible precipices of Changabang, a peak that falls from crest to glacier

in a wall that might have been sliced in a single cut of a knife. No journey is
more sublime than this visual journey from the remote depths of sub-tropical
valleys to the terrific summits surrounding the “sanctuary” of Nanda Devi.

From the col the south-west ridge of Dunagiri springs up in a series of
sharp snow-edges to a rock band about two-fifths of the way to the summit
ridge.

Above this band the ridge is flattened to the east and forms an edge rather
than a ridge between the south-east and west faces of the mountain. Thus the
climb above the rock band is more of a face climb than a ridge climb until
the south-west shoulder of the peak is reached, whence a series of sharp
edges lead towards the final snow-cap of the mountain.

Shipton found ice above the col, but when we set off to prospect the route
we found soft snow on, the initial ridge and the climbing was wearisome
rather than difficult.

Perhaps an hour later we reached a little plateau at the foot of the rock
band, an obvious site for a camp, though it was doubtful whether the summit
was acces-sible in one day’s climbing from this point, taking into account
the length of the final ridge.

The rock band was still plastered by recently fallen snow which had
melted here and there to form an ugly ice glaze. Our first attempt to climb it
round a comer to the left was unsuccessful, and we found our-selves in an
uncomfortable position on snow-covered rocks, with, in my case, boot soles
caked with ice and numbed fingers. After this we did what we should have
done before, tackled the problem frontally; and after a difficult and exacting
piece of work succeeded in climbing it.

Thenceforward the ascent was comparatively easy until the ridge petered
out in the face of the mountain. Judging from photographs, this face is some
fifty degrees in angle in its lowermost portion and steepens several more
degrees before connecting with the south-west shoulder. In good conditions
it should be possible to climb it over rocks, but these were now buried
beneath snow or glazed with ice and we were forced to the east on to a
snow-slope.

Whether further advance was justifiable depended on the condition of this
slope. At the point where the ridge merged into it this snow was suspiciously
wind-rippled, and, held by Peter, I went a full rope-length ahead to test it.
Wind ripples inevitably suggest that deadliest form of avalanche trap, wind
slab. The climber is proceeding on hard and apparently safe snow when the
surface layer cracks and sweeps down, carrying him with it. A slope of two

or three hundred feet may well prove fatal as the snow, which has been
compacted by the wind, splits up into hard blocks.

The two essential conditions for wind slab are a slope which permits of
the snow accumulating on the lee of a ridge or buttress and a humidity of the
atmo-sphere not less than about 80 per cent. These conditions persist on
the North Col of Mount Everest during the monsoon season, and combine
to render the east side a death-trap. On this slope of Dunagiri, however,
though the required degree of humidity was certainly present in the
atmosphere, the slope was exposed to the wind, which instead of indirectly
depositing snow on a lee, had directly compacted it by pressure. Yet,
when all is said and done, and the mountaineer has taken into account the
implications of weather, snow, temperature and position of the slope, the
casting vote between safety and danger must as often as not be based on
intuition, a feeling, as Mr. Winthrop Young would have it, for the
mountains. Just as the old sailor can “smell” bad weather or danger in his
environment, so can the mountaineer sense danger on a mountain.
This intuition is the product of experience and a love for the mountains ;
it springs from something far deeper than superficial logic or rule of thumb ;
no text-books can analyse it, nor words describe it; it is the still small voice
of Nature, and woe betide him who turns a deaf ear.

The slope was safe, but it was steep; not until we approached the shoulder
did we tread rock, then there was an awkward little wall and an icy gully.
Meanwhile the weather had steadily deteriorated and the signal for our
arrival on the shoulder was a sudden snowstorm, accompanied by a strong
and bitterly cold wind. We paused just long enough to see the first of a series
of sharp snow-edges leading towards the summit. There was no question of
advancing further as apart from the bad weather; we were both tired after a
climb of well over 3,000 feet on snow which reminded me of mid- winter
snow on a high Alpine peak.

The porters meanwhile had carried up the camp to the col, and by the time
we had descended through mist and snow the tents had been pitched.

September 9th dawned clear after a cold night and soon after the sun had
risen we packed up preparatory to carrying the camp up the ridge. In such
unsettled weather and difficult conditions there was no possibility of taking
it beyond the little plateau at the foot of the rock band. From this point
retreat is possible in bad weather, but a camp above the band might be
isolated for a considerable period, quite apart from the difficulty of pitching
it on the steep and exposed slopes beneath the shoulder,

Our steps of yesterday had been filled up with snow and had to be made
anew, and with laden porters the ascent took nearly twice the time
previously taken by Peter and myself.

Except that there was a nearly level platform for the tents the site had
nothing to recommend it, for it was fully exposed to the wind. Our advent
was the signal for the worst Himalayan weather I have known, except for the
storms on Mount Everest in 1933. My diary is terse on the point.

“ September 9th. Pushed camp to plateau below rock step. Blizzard at n
a.m., lasted 22 hours. Terribly cold. Zip fastener broke and powdery snow
invaded tent (Peter and I were sharing his tent). The coldest night I’ve ever
spent bar high camps on Everest.

“ loth. Wretched day. Blizzards. Descended to col for more provisions.
Snow 1-2 feet deep on ridge and avalanches peeling off the slopes; steps had
to be remade, We were working with two porters, Tse Tendrup and Ang
Bao, the remainder having returned to the lower camp for more provisions
and equipment.

“ 1 Oth. Clear early. Gale later, then blizzard. Lightning at night. Hopeless
conditions.

“ 11th. Clear morning but snowstorm in afternoon. High wind blowing
clouds of snow off mountain. Sun cleared some of the snow from rocks
above the camp.”

In such conditions there was little hope of reaching the summit and we
were not in the position to play a waiting game. We determined however, to
push an attack through as far as possible, in which we were encouraged to
some small degree by the quantities of snow stripped from the mountain by
the wind. If we could regain the shoulder there was a chance we might find
the summit ridge in fair condition.

The night of the 12th was starlit and calm and at 4 a.m. on the i3th we
roused ourselves and began the wretched business of cooking a meal. The
cold was intense; our boots were iron-like, and as usual the condensed milk
had spilt overnight, and frozen in a horrid mess to the floor of the tent.

We were off at 6. The rope, which had become wet, had frozen and was as
intractable as a steel hawser. The cold was still intense, and my toes soon
became so numb that nothing I could do would restore circulation. The one
thing in our favour was the weather, which was clear and calm.

If the difficulties had been considerable before they were now far worse,
and it was all we could do to force the ice- and snow-plastered rocks
immediately above the camp.

We led in turn. The upper snow-slope had been safely swept by the wind,
but our former steps had disappeared and had to be made anew. The
shoulder is about 1,500 feet from the plateau, but it took three and a half
hours to reach. As we climbed, the fine morning quickly deteriorated ; mists
were forming as we trod the first of a series of snow-crests leading towards
the summit, and a rising wind carried powdery snow into our faces.

The ridge rises and falls in a series of scallop-like edges. Of the precipices
on either hand, that to the south-east is a mere 4,000 feet, but that to the west
is appalling in its steepness and magnitude. At first sight it seems to fall
direct into the Dhauli Valley, 15,000 feet lower; actually, however, the sheer
drop into a side glen of the valley cannot be less than 8,000-10,000 feet and
constitutes one of the highest mountain walls of the Central Himalayas.

We had hoped against hope that we would find the ridge in good
condition, but in this we were disappointed. The fierce blizzards of the past
few days, instead of sweeping it bare had accumulated loose snow upon it,
building it up in the process to a razor-like edge.

The first crest was merely fatiguing, as at every step we sank deeply into
the soft, floury snow, but on the second we encountered cornices which
increased in size the farther we advanced. And they were cornices of the
most treacherous type. The ridge crest was con-tinuous in appearance and it
was the undercut that varied in width. Thus in one place the undercut would
be practically nil, and in another place a few yards away, eight or ten feet,
without any perceptible difference in the run of the ridge crest to indicate
this variation in overhang.

The solution to such a problem is, of course, to traverse a ridge at a safe
distance from any possible cornices, but in the present instance the steepness
of the south-east slope, coupled with the loose deep snow, made such an
alternative disagreeable, not to say dangerous.

The wind increased steadily as we advanced, and the ridge reeked and
smoked with blown snow, so that it became more and more difficult to
estimate our position in relation to the cornice. These conditions contributed
more than any negligence on our part to a narrow escape from disaster.

We were’ taking it in turns to stamp out a track through the loose snow,
and Peter was in the lead. He was some thirty feet ahead of me and half
concealed every few moments by clouds of wind-driven snow, when without

a sound the ridge crest peeled off beneath him. As the loosely packed snow
collapsed the wind caught it and whirled it upwards, so that it seemed almost
to explode. For a moment he disappeared from view, then I saw him; he bad
been at the edge of the break, and though he had fallen with the cornice he
had landed on the true crest of the ridge a few feet lower.

It all happened in a second. He stopped, while the collapsed cornice went
smoking down the ice-slopes, then scrambled back to the ridge and safety.

A question 1 have often asked myself since is would I have been able to
stop him had he followed the cornice down the ice face? I could only have
done so by throwing myself down the other side of the ridge. Once in the
.Alps I had to do this, but that was to check the fall of a companion, and I
had a second or two in which to decide upon a course of action. Here I had
less time and at high altitudes the brain works slowly-I can only hope that I
would have done the right thing.

We were shaken by the experience, and when Peter regained the ridge,
almost exhausted by the effort, the one thing I could think of to say, and it
flashed illogically, absurdly and brutally into my mind, was, “You have been
warned!”

After this little misadventure we traversed the south-east slope some
distance from the ridge, but we had not gone far when it was brought home
to us that we were beaten. I was now taking a turn ahead and so steep was
the slope that I was edging along sideways. Worse than this was the loose
snow; at every step we sank in to the knees ; and beneath the snow was ice,
so that it was impossible to secure ourselves by driving in our axes, and we
felt that the snow might cascade off at any moment and take us with it. Our
attempt had been pushed to the limit of justifiability. There was nothing for
it but to retreat.

We had traversed about one-third of the ridge, and beyond our highest
point there appears to be no insuperable obstacle. Given good conditions
Dunagiri Is a safe climb, but it will never be an easy one, especially if much
ice is present.

The descent was a miserable experience. I did not realise until we retired
how cold I was. Never have I felt so cold; my feet were without feeling, and
my fingers so numb and stiff that I could scarcely grasp my ice-axe. To halt
on the ridge was impossible, but a short distance below the shoulder we
found a partially sheltered place under a rock where I removed my boots.
My feet were white and entirely without feel-tog, so Peter set to work to rub

them. For half an hour he worked away and I can never be sufficiently
grateful to him; there is no doubt that he saved me from serious frost-bite.

As we sat on an uncomfortably sloping rock we were a ole to take stock of
ourselves and of what we had endured on the wind-blasted ridge. We were
caked with ice, and our faces looked out from the midst of a solid mass of
ice matting our beards, moustaches and Balaclava helmets.

We turned back at 10.15 anA regained the camp at 1.15, after a descent
complicated by yet another snow-storm. There Tse Tendrup and Ang Bao
set to work on my feet. Their skill was surprising; an experienced masseuse
could not have done it better; no doubt Tibetans are used to dealing with
frost-bite, and experience in treating it is hereditary with them. It was an
agonising process when the circulation began to return and so prolonged was
the rubbing that raw patches appeared.

There was no question of a further attempt on Dunagiri, and we packed up
the camp and descended through weather that was working up for another
blizzard. On the col we collected the remainder of our gear and hastened
down to the glacier, meeting Nurbu and Pasang on the way, who relieved us
of some of our loads.

Wangdi had pitched a camp on the glacier, and there my feet had another
rubbing which restored the circulation, except to my big toes which had
already suffered on Everest, and which continued to remind me of Dunagiri
for some months to come.

Altogether we were thankful to be off the mountain safely, for what with
avalanches, blizzards and collapsing cornices, we felt that we had had more
than our fair share of excitements. I remember corning across a copy of
“Punch” which had arrived by a previous mail. In it was a questionnaire
entitled, “Are You Alive?” I read it very carefully and decided that we were,
but only just.

Snow fell heavily at the lower camp, and the weather increased in
spitefulness during our return through the Rishi Valley, reaching a climax
the day we marched from Dibrugheta to Durashi, when rain fell in such

-; torrents that the stream between the two alps had to be forded one man
at a time tied to a rope. . But this day, September i6th, was the last day of the
monsoon. As I lay shivering in a soaked sleeping-bag I saw the stars shining
steadily, and next morning the alp lay white and frosty beneath a cloudless
sky. The fine weather lasted, and all day as we marched to Lata Kharak the

sun blazed with a new-found vigour. The monsoon had ended as though
turned off by a tap.

In brilliant sunshine we ran down to Lata to receive a warm welcome
from the friendly populace of that little village, and the following day
strolled back to Joshimath.

We had been beaten, soundly thrashed, by Dunagiri, but it was an
experience we could hardly regret. Within the space of three weeks we had
tasted all that mountaineering has to offer in the Himalayas. Swiftly perish
the memories of failure and success ; imperishable are the memories of good
adventuring.

CHAPTER XXIV

AUTUMN IN THE VALLEY OF FLOWERS

ON September 21st Peter and I parted at Joshimath, Peter to return to
Ranikhet and I to return to the Bhyundar Valley to complete my botanical
work. So ended the happiest mountaineering partnership of my experience.

It was a perfect morning as I strolled along the Alaknanda Valley. The air
was charged with a new sweetness and strength. The humid, waterlogged
vapours of the past two months had been replaced by an atmosphere of
crystal clarity; the sun was no longer a fierce despotic tyrant, but warm and
genial.

The last of the pilgrims were descending from Badrinath, and they too
seemed imbued with the vigour of the atmosphere and greeted me
cheerfully. In a week or two Badrinath would be evacuated for the winter,
when snow accumulates to a great depth and renders the Alaknanda Valley
inaccessible.

The cycle of life and growth had entered a new phase. Here and there
were fields of millet ripening to a deep magenta, and the hillsides were
tinted with brown and gold. The predominant note was the intense stillness.
The streams after their turbulence had regained tranquillity; the weather,
freed from its recent passions, had lapsed into a profound peacefulness; the
air was entirely without movement, and a great hush had fallen on hill and
valley.

Once again I crossed the crazy little suspension bridge over the
Alaknanda River and climbed through the forests to the same camping place
at the edge of the Bhyundar River.

Nothing had changed since I entered the valley three months earlier. The
remains of the half-burnt tree-trunk were still lying there; the evening was
the same with the distant peak alight between the walls of the gorge. Then,
miracle of miracles, and I must ask the reader to accept this as true, the same
little bird sang the same little hymn from the tree above my tent. In this
changelessness lies Nature s greatest message to men. Beside it our hurly-
burly of rush and bustle can be viewed in its true proportions ; our little
snobberies, our puffed up self-importance, become as naught when viewed
against this supreme indifference of Nature. Yet the message is not purely
negative; it should not inspire hopelessness or passivity. In Nature we see a
force building up from limitless materials to some unimagined end; we are
part of a growth infinitely serene; why then should we not partake of
serenity?

At the upper village next morning I met the old shepherd who had
supplied me with milk. He and the other shepherds had driven down their
flocks and were about to descend to the Alaknanda Valley for the winter.
The grain had been reaped, and lay in golden piles on rush-work mats or in
the flagged courtyards of the houses.

Above the village I saw no one, until I came to the pastures below the
gorge where some goats were still grazing. Beyond these alps the valley was
deserted, and it seemed strange that it should have been aban-doned thus
early; probably there are seasons when snow falls deeply early in October
and the shepherds dare not risk their flocks later than the third week in
September.

On the last occasion I had crossed the bridge below the gorge the torrent
had raged furiously, but with the ending of the monsoon it had shrunk to
peaceable dimensions, for winter cold was-now gripping the high snows.

It was good to pass through the gorge into the upper meadows. Peter and I
had left them under scowling skies, but now the sky was the colour of the
gentians that were blooming in their millions at the base camp, except where
a few light plumes and tufts of glowing cloud clung to the peaks or floated
lazily between them. When I had left, green was the predominant shade, now
it was brown and gold ; the floor of the valley was enriched with soft
colourings, varying from the deep red of the potentilla leaves to the yellow
of the withering grasses and the faintest tinge of russet in the birch forest.
Here and there drifts of white everlastings matched the snows on high, and
down by the stream blue cynoglossum and deep red potentillas, growing
from turf only recently evacuated by avalanche debris, were in bloom,
hastening to complete their cycle before winter should come.

The predominant note was peace; not the faintest breeze ruffled the
herbage and the silence was the silence of a vast ocean utterly calm, though
always the sound of the streams came to the ear as a soft almost
imperceptible cadence.

The evenings were cooler now and frost rimed the herbage at nights, so
that I was glad of a fire. Other-wise there was little difference. The same
evening mist swept up through the gorge, hurried along the valley and
melted away as quickly as it formed, and the same stars looked down when
the snows of Rataban had flamed and paled in the swift tide of night.

The morning after our arrival I set the men to work to dig up nomocharis
bulbs. It was no easy task, as the nomocharis seems to prefer the company of
bracken roots and grows a full six inches deep; ordinary forks and spades
were useless, and ice-axes had to be employed.

Meanwhile I collected seeds. Unfortunately the sheep had done
considerable damage and numerous plants that I had carefully marked had
been nibbled down to the roots. Thus I had great difficulty in finding such
plants as the Cypripedium himalaicum and even the Polemonium caeruleum,
which had flourished in the vicinity of the camp.

Thanks to a friend of Peter’s, Lieut. Robertson, I now had a rifle with
which to stalk the Abominable Snowman. Alas, at Joshimath I had received
a tele-gram from London which read “Tracks made by bear” so all that
remained to be done was to search for the bruin. It was sad to have my
romance rudely shattered, for I had long nourished the secret hope that there
really was an Abominable Snowman and that he lived in the Valley of
Flowers. I had wondered, too, what my legal position would be were I to
shoot him, and had pictured an intricate argument in the Law Courts hinging
in all probability on whether the Snowman was the man-eating variety or
merely a devourer of yaks. If the former I could at least plead justifiable
homicide, but if the latter my position would be intricate and difficult and I
might have to face a charge of snow-manslaughter at the very least.

So far from being grateful to the scientists who had elucidated my
measurements and photographs, I cursed them roundly as destroyers of my
romantic illusions. I endeavoured to’ explain to Wangdi that the tracks had
been identified as those of a bear by the scientific pandits in London, but he
dismissed their conclusions contemptuously and said something in Tibetan
which I was unable to understand, but which I am certain was derogatory to
zoological science. He even evidenced a scepticism as to the power of the
rifle and, explained that even if I did not drop dead before I had time to fire

it the bullet would pass straight through the Abomin-able Snowman without
incommoding him in the least. It says well for his bravery that he did not
hesitate to accompany me on my stalk.

It was a perfect morning when we left the base camp, with hoar-frost on
the ground and the sun rising in a cloudless sky from behind Rataban. My
plan was to climb the hillside to the east of the base camp, then to traverse
more or less horizontally across the end of the glacier into which the tracks
had descended.

Our best route lay up a steep and broken ridge, and we were scrambling
up this and had arrived at the foot of a little rock step perhaps fifteen feet
high, when of a sudden there was a rushing sound from above. Thinking for
a moment that a stone was coming, we ducked in close to the rocks and next
moment a musk deer jumped over our heads and was gone in a flash. I had a
momentary glimpse of it as it bolted down the ridge with incredible
surefootedness and speed, before disappearing from sight over a brow.

A few yards higher we found its cave, which was full of droppings and
highly charged with musk. Except for this incident the ascent was
uneventful, and we came at length to a boulder-strewn shoulder where we
were surprised to find a cairn, which had probably been built by the Sikh
during his survey of the Bhyundar Valley. A little higher the ridge ended
against a sheer rock face, two or three thousand feet high. Here we halted,
for the ridge was an excellent viewpoint and commanded a view of the
glacier and mountainside to which the tracks had descended.

Needless to say there was no animal life to be seen, not so much as a
barhal, though we had seen their tracks during the ascent, so we divided our
time between scanning the hillside through my monocular glass and
collecting seeds from various small plants which included androsaces,
everlastings, dwarf potentillas and gentians.

Light mists had formed in the valley and between them the stream
showed, a straggling silver line, but the sky was unclouded, a deep royal
blue into which the snow-laden peaks rose unfuzzed by a single breath of
wind. Gauri Parbat in particular loomed spectac-ularly magnificent, whilst
the snow-peak we had climbed lifted a gleaming crest on dark-banded
precipices dusted with winter snow.

There seemed little object in pelting across hillsides after a bear or even
an Abominable Snowman when we could lie at our ease on the warm _ sun-
soaked turf, and it was a full two hours later before we bestirred ourselves
from our lethargy to continue with the hunt.

Having descended from the ridge we crossed the tongue of the glacier and
traversed steep hillsides, buttresses and gullies until we came to another
grassy ridge, which rose to a craggy top. It was a perfect luncheon place,
whilst many plants in seed more than compensated me for any regret I may
have felt at not sighting our quarry. So for the next sunny hour or two we
rested there or filled envelopes with seeds, and what better way is there of
spending an autumn afternoon on a hillside? Which would you prefer: a
flower in your garden or a mouldering head on your wall?

Before returning to the base camp we descended to the buttress beneath
which was the cave into which I had seen a bear retreat. The bear had left or
was not at home, but on the buttress I discovered a gentian I had not seen
before, light purple in colour and with a light green throat which I decided
was worth any number of bears.

We arrived back at the base camp without having fired a shot, and for this
I am glad. Long may the peacefulness of the Valley of Flowers remain
undisturbed.

The days passed all too quickly and with their passing the autumn hues
brightened until the valley glowed golden in the sunlight. Twice showers fell
in the late afternoon and once thunder rumbled among the ranges but the
weather otherwise remained perfect. I wish that I could convey some picture
of this perfection. The sun shone daily from unclouded sides of
indescri-bable purity, all Nature slept and dreamed and the very spirit of
Peace pervaded the still atmosphere. As I had felt on the Mana Peak so did I
feel now, that to shout would be profane, that this peacefulness in which we
lived was a precious experience?

A clever friend once told me: “The trouble with you is that you feel more
than you think.” If this is so, thank God for my disability. For solitude in the
Valley of Flowers taught me the insignificance and incapacity for happiness
of thought as compared with a meditation that knows no intellectual
limitations, but is content to accept with childlike faith and delight the
infinite beauties and grandeurs of the universe. So limited is the scope of
thought when brought to bear on the splendours of the Universe that we
must first of all rid ourselves of its ensnaring tangles before we can turn our
eyes to heaven and read the message of the hilltops and the stars. What a
man gains in cleverness he may lose in spiritual perception; he is indeed
great who can conquer his own cleverness,

The day came when the Dotials arrived to carry my loads to Ranikhet.
This was September 29th, my last day in the Valley of Flowers, and that

evening I sat late by the camp fire. The night was supremely still and the
smoke of the burning juniper stood straight up into the stars. The porters had
long since ceased talking and were fast asleep and no sound came to me but
little hissing whispers from the fire and the eternal note of the stream. All
about me was the great peacefulness of the hills, a peacefulness so perfect
that something within me seemed to strain upwards as though to catch the
notes of an immortal harmony. There seemed in this peace and quietude
some Presence, some all-pervading” beauty separated from me only by my
own “muddy vesture of decay.” The stars and the hills beneath the stars, the
flowers at my feet were part of a supreme Purpose which I myself must
struggle to fulfil. Poor little man, from ignoble depths to starry heights, from
hill-top to valley in a reckless run ; poor, slogging little man, how hard and
wearisome the climb, how besetting the winds and difficulties. Surely the
hills were made that we should appreciate our strength and frailties? The
stars that we should sense our destiny? Yet through all this tangled skein of
earthly life must run the golden thread of beauty. Beauty is everywhere; we
need not go to the hills to find it. Peacefulness is everywhere, if we make it
so ; we need not go the hills to seek it. Yet because we are human and
endowed with physical qualities, and because we cannot divorce ourselves
from these qualities we need to utilise them as best we can and seek through
them beauty that we may return refreshed in mind and spirit. So we go to
seek beauty on a hill, the beauty of a larger freedom, the beauty that lifts us
to a high window of our fleshy prison whence we may see a little further
over the dry and dusty plains to the blue ranges and eternal snows. So we
climb the hills, pitting our strength against difficulty, enduring hardship,
discomfort and danger that through a subjugation of body we may perceive
beauty and discover a contentment of spirit beyond all earthly imaginings.
And through beauty and contentment we gain peace.

It is the ugliness man creates that leads to discontent-ment and war ; the
ugliness of greed, and the ugliness that greed begets-; a vast ocean of
ugliness in which he perishes miserably. It is because men are beginning to
realise this that they long to escape from an environment of mechanical
noises, of noisome fumes and hideous arrangements of bricks and steel into
the beauty and quietude of the countryside, to carry themselves naturally on
their legs, not artificially on wheels, to travel at God’s pace, to listen to the
song of Nature, the birds, the streams and the breeze in the cornfield, to look
upon beautiful things, flowers, meadowlands and hill-tops, to live for a time
simply and rhythmically in airs untainted by factory smoke, to discover the
virtues of simplicity and goodwill.

Beauty, health, good comradeship, peace, all these had been mine in the
Valley of Flowers. For a while I had lived simply and happily and I like to
think, indeed I know, that those about me had been happy too.

Such memories are imperishable for they rely on their perpetuity not on
physical action, but on a contempla-tion that reaches into the very soul of
beauty. For I had seen many beautiful things and not least of these was the
loyalty and devotion of my companions, those hard bitten men who were
ready to dare all and risk all if by so doing they could further my plans and
ambitions. Such loyalty as this is rarer than gold.

So I spent some of my last hours in the Valley of Flowers, seated by the
camp fire, until the flames died down and the stars brightened beyond the
hill-tops; and all about me was the serenity of God.

CHAPTER XXV

PEAKS AND FLOWERS OF THE CENTRAL HIMALAYAS

In 1931 when Kamet, a peak of 25,447 ft. in the Garhwal Himalayas, was
climbed by a small party of British mountaineers, the expedition, of which I
was a member, descended to the village of Gamsali in the Dhauli Valley,
then crossed the Zaskar Range to the south of the mountain by the Bhyundar
Pass (16,688 ft.) into the Alaknanda Valley with the intention of exploring
the mountainous region at the sources of the Alaknanda and Gangotri rivers,
the two principal tributaries of the Ganges.

The monsoon had broken and the day on which we crossed the pass was
wet and miserable. Below 16,000 ft. rain was falling, but above that height
was sleet or snow. A bitter wind lashed us on the pass, and as quickly as
possible we descended into the Bhyundar Valley, which is a tributary of the
Alaknanda Valley.

Within a few minutes we were out of the wind and in rain which became
gradually warmer as we lost height. Dense mist shrouded the mountain-side
and we had paused, uncertain as to the way, when I heard R. L. Holdsworth,
who was a botanist as well as a climbing member of the expedition, exclaim,
“Look!” I followed the direction of his outstretched hand, but at first could
see nothing but rocks; then, suddenly, my gaze was arrested by a splash of
blue so intense that it seemed to light the barren hillside. Beyond it were
other splashes of blue. The primula (P. nivalis macrophyUa), to which this
effect was due, was but one of hundreds of varieties of flowers that filled the
valley. Round our camps it was impossible to take a step without crushing a
flower.

Dr. T. G. Longstaff and the late A. L. Mumm had visited the Bhyundar
Valley in 1907 and remarked on its great beauty; I have no hesitation in
saying that it is the most beautiful Himalayan valley I have ever seen.

After many years in London I went to live in the country and
instantaneously became a gardener; this brought a great desire to return to
the Bhyundar Valley which I had always remembered as the Valley of
Flowers. What better, after four elaborate expeditions which had major
peaks as their objectives, than to spend a summer wandering in Garhwal, a
country like Switzerland on a grand scale but unsullied by civilization, with
fertile valleys and innumerable peaks to climb, a country, where you may
tread the eternal snows in the morning and spend the afternoon among
flowers?

An additional incentive was the small amount of collecting previously
accomplished in Garhwal. Sikkim and Kashmir have added many beautiful
flowers to British gardens and more recently the Chinese-Burmese end of
the Himalayas has become fashionable;’ yet since the years 1846 to 1849,
when Sir Richard Strachey and J.E. Winterbottom made their famous
collection of herbarium specimens, little collecting has been done in the
upper valleys apart from Holdsworth’s work in 1931. Perhaps the district
gained a bad reputation among botanists on account of the comparative
sterility of the foothills, where plant life is choked by dense carpets of
needles deposited by the forests of chir (Pinus Roxburghii); but the upper
valleys, which are well watered by glaciers and melting snow, are
superlatively rich in flowers.

In 1937 the opportunity came to revisit Garhwal. It was arranged that my
collecting should be done for the Edinburgh Botanic Garden and I am
indebted to Dr J. Macqueen Cowan, Assistant Keeper, for much valuable
assistance and advice. Captain P.R. Oliver was to join me towards the end of
July, and prior to this I decided to make the Bhyundar Valley my
headquarters, collect flowers and climb mountains. To assist in this work I
engaged four Tibetan porters from Darjeeling, all experienced men, the
sirdar, Wangdi Narbu (Ondi), being an old friend of mine who has
accompanied all the Himalayan expeditions in which I have taken part. In
addition, eleven Dotial porters of a race indigenous to southern Nepal were
engaged to carry my heavy luggage.

On June 5 I left Ranikhet and, after a journey by lorry of 55 miles to
Garur, marched across the foothills. The route lies at first through forests of
chir, then oaks and tree rhododendrons, one of which had a trunk 5 ft. in
diameter and must be one of the largest tree rhododendrons ever observed.

At Semkharak I saw hundreds of acres of the cream coloured Paeonia
emodi, a few plants of which were still in bloom, and below the 12,000 ft.
Kuari Pass the first of a host of dwarf iris (/. kumaonensis).

On June 14 I reached Joshimath at the junction of the Dhauli and
Alaknanda rivers, a halting-place for pilgrims en route to the shrine at
Badrinath near the source of the latter river.

The Bhyundar Valley bifurcates with the Alaknanda Valley about six
miles from Joshimath, and a day later I camped about midway up it at a
height of 7500 ft. Here arc dense deciduous forests and a tangle of
undergrowth compressed between great sheets and curtains of rock on which
gauzy waterfalls are suspended. There are two hamlets in the valley
populated by hardy Garhwalis who eke out a precarious livelihood from
little fields of grain and from flocks of sheep and goats which graze on the
high pastures during the summer months. Many of these people are of a
pronounced Semitic type, but in the villages on the main trade-routes near
the Tibetan frontier dwell a semi-Mongolian people, known as Marcha
Bhotias, who are natural mountaineers and become excellent porters with a
little training in mountain-craft; it may be that they will one day rival the
sherpas and Bhotias who have done magnificent work on Everest,
Kangchenjunga, Nanga Parbat and other great peaks.

Next day I passed the last habitations in the valley and, after mounting
through a dense forest, emerged onto a delightful alp, watered by clear
running streams, gay with blue and white anemones (A. obtusilaba). I also
found Primula denticulata, which was already in seed at this altitude, a
purple-flowered monkshood (Aconitum heterophyllum), and a whole host of
rosy rock jasmine (Androsace primuloides) cascading over some boulders.
Yet up to this point there is little of floral interest in the Bhyundar Valley
and I began to wonder whether memory had tricked me as regards the
uppermost meadows. I need not have feared.

Beyond the alp the valley narrows into a gorge with sheer walls of rock
rising 2000 ft. on either hand framing a wall of rock peaks against which the
valley appears to end. I crossed the glacier torrent by a Log bridge and
followed a shepherds’ track which later emerged from the pine forest onto
open slopes. Here I had to cut steps across two snow gullies and presently
came to the debris of an immense avalanche which covered the stream for
fully a quarter of a mile to a depth of at least 100 ft.

Gradually the valley broadened out and bent round almost at right angles
beneath the wall of rock peaks. As 1 turned a comer I saw out of the tail of

my eye a slope mistily blue. It was a fumitory, the rare and beautiful
Corydalis cashmeriana, a flower with little pipe-like blooms, dark tipped at
the lips. Then, after recrossing the steam by a bridge of avalanche snow, I
came to a moist meadow carpeted with marigolds and the first of a stately
white anemone, larger by far than the A. narcissiflora of the Alps, later
identified as the A. pulyanthes which a little later covered the slopes so that
they shone white from afar.

The valley swept round to the east and far above a sheet of silver birch
forest shone the snows of Rataban (20,23 1 ft.) with a col to the north, a
snowy parabola I had longed to tread in 1931. I had entered the Valley of
Flowers and the reality exceeded my rosiest expectations.

The base-camp was pitched at about 12,000 ft. at the topmost end of a
long sloping shelf some 500 ft. above the valley floor. I cannot picture a
more beautiful camping-site. Above and below an almost level sward were
forests of silver birch fringed with cream and purple rhododendrons.
Opposite, across the valley, stood the wall of rock peaks now revealed in all
its magnificence: wild up-rush of giant crags biting into the profound blue
sky, and at the head of the valley were the soberer snows of Rataban with a
fringe of green-lipped ice-falls. Of the gorge there was no sign; it lay
concealed round the bend of the valley so that to all intent we might have
been eut off from the outside world in some exitless and inaccessible valley.

Spring had only recently come to the alp but already the moist turf was
pulsing with life. Between the lank, dead herbage of the previous summer
innumerable shoots were pushing upwards; some fat and stumpy, others thin
and spearlike, all growing at that astonishing speed of mountain plants
anxious to complete their cycle before winter sets in. A few plants were
already in bloom: a minute gentian spread its blue, delicately frilled blooms
over the turf; just above the camp were hundreds of Primula denticulata and
here and there a white allium (A. humile) clustered, the bulb of which proved
excellent to eat as did also the stems of a rhubarb.

Having dismissed the Dotials, I settled down with my four Darjeeiing
Bhotias to the happiest and most interesting few weeks of my experience.
My time was apportioned fairly equally between flower-collecting and
mountaineering. My ignorance as regards the former was lamentable, but I
was greatly helped by Beautiful Flowers of Kashmir, by Ethelbert Blatter,
which had been given to me by that great gardener, Mr G.P. Baker.

Immediately below the camp a rough sheep track descended through the
birch forest to the torrent which was conveniently bridged with avalanche

debris so that the north side of the valley was easily accessible. Here, on
south-facing slopes, I found many plants in bloom. Never shall I forget a
little alp, which I called Bear Alp because of a black bear we saw there,
where I found the first of innumerable Nomocharis oxypetala, a rare golden
lily-like plant which made a golden carpet rippling in the breeze. Later I
collected 3000 bulbs from an area of well under one hundred yards square.
Then there v/as a purple orchis (O. latifolia), potentillas, aconitums and rock
plants, androsaces, saxifrages and sedums, already in bloom. The climate
resembled that of an English June and a gentle breeze brought an
indescribable scent of plant life.

Very soon the alp around my base-camp was carpeted with flowers of
which the most prominent to begin with was the Fritillaria Roylei with its
delightful fragile green bells, whilst on a bank near the camp grew a
charming little cassiope (C.fastigiata) with white pendant bells, and among
rocks the white-pink spires of Bergenia Stracheyi. The woods, too, were rich
in shade-loving plants including the wood lily (Trillium Govanianum) and
many ferns such as the maidenhair, oak, lady and moon-fern. Then the
primulas. The scope of this article does not allow more than mention of a
few. I came upon the rare Primula Wigramiana, recently found in Nepal and
named in honour of Lord Wigram, a beautiful little ivory-white flower, and
the still rarer Primula Heydei, a curious plant which like the P. sertulum
from the Priobilof Islands propagates itself by sending out runners, whilst
the P. nivalis macrophylla, in its light blue and dark blue forms, decorated
the inhospitable ledges high on the mountain-sides to a height of 16,000 ft.

My first ascent was on a rock-peak about 17,000 ft. immediately above
the base-camp, but in spite of the view, which extended along the Zaskar
Range to the snows to Trisul and the peak of Nanda Devi, and a glissade on
perfect snow of fully 4500 ft., I did not enjoy it as I was violently mountain-
sick. Then we visited the snow col to the north of Rataban and I climbed
alone an easy peak of about 19,000 ft. But our attempt on Rataban was
beaten by bad weather. I awoke in the night with a feeling as though
cobwebs were lying on my face. It was an effect due to electrical tension and
a few seconds later there was a violent lightning flash which fortunately
missed the camp. This was followed by a severe blizzard and to avoid
avalanches we had to pack up camp and descend at five o’clock next
morning.

During this expedition I was much intrigued by a beautiful snow peak
between 19,000 and 20,000 ft. high to the south to the Bhyundar Valley.
After a reconnaissance we found a way to it via a branch valley of the main

valley and, camping at about 14,500 ft., completed the ascent next day after
a splendid snow and ice climb during which Wangdi Nurbu and Nurbu
Bhotia proved that they were competent mountaineers capable of excellent
work on Everest in 1938.

After this ascent the monsoon broke-on June 26-and the moisture-laden
clouds flooded up the Alaknanda Valley into the Bhyundar Valley. But the
monsoon in northern Garhwal is nothing like so heavy as it is in Sikkim and
provided that the mountaineer keeps near the Tibetan frontier he enjoys
excellent climbing conditions. In the Bhyundar Valley there was
occasionally heavy rain, which occurred mostly at night, and numerous
afternoon showers, but these, combined with the warmth, had the effect of
bringing the flora to full magnificence and beauty.

For convenience’ sake I shifted my base-camp to the floor of the valley
and here I was embowered amidst flowers. Among these were campanulas,
cyananthus, codonopsis, gentains, pedicularis, cynoglossum, asters,
erigerons, polemoniums, delphiniums, violas, cypripediums, geraniums,
eritrichiums, saussureas, anaphalis and epilobiums to mention but a few. I
should estimate that 1 00 different species were to be found within a quarter
of a mile of the camp.

From this camp I made various expeditions. One was to a side valley
leading to the Khanta Khal Pass over which a route lies to Hanuman Chatii
in the Alaknanda Valley near Badrinath. This little valley is also rich in
flowers and I climbed two minor rock-peaks from it on the top of one about
17,500 ft., finding the beautiful Paraquilegia grandiflora, a true rock-plant
which sends out feathery foliage and delicate blue-white blooms from
vertical cracks in the rocks. As an alpine gardener, flowers such as this
excited my awe and wonder and a single little cushion plant growing on the
stern-faced crags meant more than the exotic gardens of a Moghul Emperor.
On one occasion I saw- a saussurea and an androsacc growing at a height of
20,000 ft., which must be one of the greatest heights at which flowering
plants have been observed.

Among the plants I collected from high altitudes were, Primula reptans,
Primula minutissima, saxifrages of several species including S. Hirculus,
lacquemontiana, cernua andfimbriata; Cremanthodium Decaisnei and C.
arnicoides, lovely little plants like miniature sunflowers with drooping
heads; Pleurospermum Candollii with white delicately frilled blooms;
AUardia glabra and A. tomentosa, which grow among the stones and grit
and resemble tiny pink marguerites; and a minute forget-me-not, to mention
but a few.

Nor must representative, if more common plants be forgotten. Nothing
can appear more beautiful than a slope rosy with millions of the little dwarf
Polygonum affine or the creeping Polygonum vacciniifolium which clothes
the crags with its close-packed pink blooms.

Lastly, and this is the queen of flowers in the central and western
Himalayas, conies the blue poppy (Meconopsis aculeata) which grows,
solitary, in the shade of boulders. Holdsworth compared its colour to that of
the sky at dawn, and this is no generous comparison for its petals seem
imbued with an unearthly, ethereal light.

The wall of peaks immediately to the north of my base-camp provided an
incentive for a long and difficult rock-climb which failed, when Wangdi and
I were only a few hundred feet short of the summit we were aiming at, owi
ng to dangerous snow in a gully. At least, I estimated that the snow would
have become dangerous by the time we returned. Monsoon conditions must
be studied before safe mountaineering is possible, and safe snow in the
morning may become an avalanche trap by the afternoon.

Another expedition was up a fine rock peak of about 1 9,000 ft. Here for
the first time in my Himalayan experience I found myself on rocks of a
difficulty equal to that of the Chamom’x Aiguilles. It was during the descent
of this peak that Wangdi and I encountered some of the most dangerous
climbing I have ever tackled. Being unwilling to traverse an exceptionally
difficult rock-tower, we turned off the ridge above it and descended the face
in a diagonal line to our ascending route. For about 200 ft. we had to climb
down rock slabs set at an angle of over 50°, covered with an inch or two of
ice, overlaid in its turn with loose floury snow. It was only possible to cut
nicks lor the toes in the ice and there were no belays for the rope. Of my
companion I can only say that throughout this arduous descent he climbed
with the skill and coolness of a Lochmatter. (I refer to the late Franz
Lochmatter, one o( the greatest of Swiss guides.)

My last and finest ascent was Nilgiri Parbat (21,264 ft.). On the way to
this mountain, which was climbed from a valley parallel with and to the
north of the Bhyundar Valley, Wangdi, Nurbu, Pasang and I crossed a
glacier pass of about 17,000 ft. and it was here that we saw tracks believed
by my companions to be those of a Mirka or ‘Abominable Snowman’, about
which much correspondence appeared in The Times. In the present instance
the tracks were undoubtedly made by a bear (Ursus Arctos Isabellinus), but
the snowman legend persists and I for one hope that there is a snowman, to
say nothing of a snow woman and snow baby. In these prosaic days such a
possibility is exciting and romantic.

Nilgiri Parbat proved the finest snow and ice peak I have ever scaled and
on the last day Wangdi, Nurbu and I climbed nearly 7000 ft., completing the
ascent up a complicated ice-face and along the north-east ridge of the
mountain. Never have I trodden a more beautiful snow summit; it formed a
point of mathematical exactitude so sharp that there was room for only one
man at a time on it.

On July 23, Captain Oliver joined me, and after attempting the ascent of
Pvataban we left the Bhyundar Valley via the Bhyundar Pass (16,688 ft.),
and carried out a climbing programme which included the ascent of four
peaks, the finest being the Mana Peak (23,860 ft.), and attempts on Nilkanta
(21,640 ft.) and Dunagiri (23,184 ft.}. From August 13 to September 16 we
enjoyed only one completely fine days but after the monsoon ended the
weather remained perfect.

On September 23 I returned to the Bhyundar Valley to collect botanical
specimens. It was a perfect morning as I strolled up the valley; the humid
water-charged atmosphere of the past two months had been replaced by an
atmosphere of crystal clarity and the air was charged with a new sweetness
and strength. The cycle of growth had entered upon a new phase. By the
hamlets in the valley millet was ripening to a deep magenta and the hillsides
were tinted with brown and gold.

The shepherds and goatherds were driving their flocks down from the
upper pastures before the first winter snow should fall. Among them was an
old man who had supplied me with sheep’s milk during my former stay. He
had expected and demanded no payment but I had given him some empty
biscuit tins, which are much prized by the simple Garhwalis. I would be the
last to foist a so-called civilization on these people, for without any
economic problems other than those set by Nature they have discovered
something that millionaires cannot purchase-peace and happiness.

Having re-pitched my base-camp, I devoted my time to collecting seeds,
bulbs, tubers and rhizomes. A late-flowering gentian (G. tenella) was
blooming in its millions by the base-camp, so also were lloydias (L. serotina
and tibetica), whilst pearly everlastings (Anaphalis) covered the banks like
snow-drifts. Day succeeded day of brilliant weather; scarcely a cloud stirred
in the profound blue and not a breath of wind rustled the withering herbage:
the silence was the silence of a vast ocean utterly calm.

One of the things that impressed the most during my sojourn in this
enchanting valley was .the cycle of growth. Perhaps in some romantic age
when the herbaceous border is a thing of the past and the natural garden has

come into its own the study of association and rhythm in plant life will
receive the attention it deserves. Unlike the herbaceous border the natural
garden has no formal limitations, and to achieve this desirable end we must
study plant life in all its aspects and not only copy and emulate Nature but
adapt her to our particular needs. In the Bhyundar Valley I saw ground so
closely packed with fritillaries that it seemed impossible that other plants
could grow; yet when the fritillaries had died down they were succeeded by
other plants such as potentillas, which grew equally densely; and this cycle
persisted throughout the summer, one plant being replaced by another with
perfect precision.

Soil and association is another interesting study. Why is it, for instance,
that the Orchis latifolia is to be found in association with thistles? Is there
some interacting effect of nourishment, or some rhythmical effect not yet
understood?

Rhythm in Nature is an absorbing study - witness the researches of
Rudolf. Steiner and a vast subject awaits exploration by the natural gardener;
there is no doubt that such gardening brings us in, touch with Nature as no
ordinary gardening can.

As regards the soil, analysis of some taken from the roots of Nomocharis
oxypetela discloses moderate fertility, slight acidity and a large amount (33.8
per cent) of organic matter, i.e. leaf-mould, etc. From this and my own
observations it appears that the flowers of Garhwal arc most likely to
flourish in a light soil with plenty of organic matter present.

It is to be hoped that the seeds and specimens I brought home, several of
which have not previously been cultivated in Britain, will enrich many
British gardens.

I cannot close this article without reference to the men who contributed so
generously to my pleasure. When the final story of Everest comes to be
written, the Sherpa and Bhotia porters will take their rightful place among
the great adventuring races of the world; on an expedition such as mine it is
impossible to regard them merely as porters; they are valued and trusted
companions.

There is probably no mountain district in the world where travel and
mountaineering is more enjoyable than Garhwal and Kumaon, for they
contain every combination of beauty and grandeur that the heart can desire:
mountains innumerable, of all shades of interest and difficult}’, and people
of varied and delightful characteristics. It seems to me, looking back on the
most delightful holiday of my life, that the Valley of Flowers is the

summation of all that mountaineers love best; fine peaks to climb, valleys
and glaciers to explore, and flowerful meadows to descend into after some
splendid scramble above the snowline. I conclude this account with my
imagination centred upon the camp-fire, the flowers around me and the
smoke from the birch and juniper standing straight up into the stars.

APPENDICES
BOTANICAL NOTES

my flower collecting was confined to altitudes over the 7,000-foot level.
Above this level flowers should prove hardy in the British climate, though
there are some species which have found their way up from lower elevations
to live precariously between 7,000 and 8,000 feet which may not be hardy.
There are also many flowers below the 7,000-foot level which should prove
hardy as the frost-line is considerably lower. The sub-tropical vegetation in
the Central Himalayas is a study in itself, and though I came across many
flowers, I did not collect them for fear of complicating my object, which was
to collect seeds and specimens which should prove hardy in the open British
garden. The majority of my specimens were collected over 10,000 feet and
there are a great many flowers not collected which grow between the 7,ooo-
foot and 10,000-foot levels, whilst there are of course scores of plants
awaiting the collector above the 10,000-foot level ; I did little more than
scratch the surface of a rich mine of plants.

The following list of plants collected would be incom-plete without plants
that Mr. R. L. Holdsworth found in 1931 but which I did not find, or if I did
find rotted in my presses when they had to be kept without attention at
Joshimath for some weeks during the monsoon season.

There are also plants which grow in the foothills, such as Paeony Emodii
and Lilium Giganteum which do not find their place in a list concerned
solely with the High Himalayas.

Being very ignorant of botany it seemed to me best to concentrate on one
particular district, and the Bhyundar Valley proved ideal for this purpose as
there is a marked range of climate and rainfall within a few miles with
corresponding variety in flora.

The specimens were identified at the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh,
and I am greatly indebted to Dr. J. Macqueen Cowan, the Assistant Keeper
and his staff for the trouble they took in identifying my in-differently
pressed collection.

The plants have been arranged in the order adopted by Sir Richard
Strachey and Mr. J. E. Winterbottom, who made a scientific survey of
Garhwal and Kumaon between the years 1846 and 1849, and whose
herbarium of dried plants from these districts and the adjacent portions of
Tibet has been described as “one of the most complete and valuable that has
ever been distributed from India.”

I am also indebted to Dr. Cowan for permission to quote from a
communication he made to The Times :

“The richness of the flora of the Western Himalaya,” at least of some of
the upper valleys, is now beyond dis-pute. Mr. F. S. Smythe by his recent
expedition has established this fact, for he has brought back from there some
250 plants, many of them representatives of the most popular garden
genera.. This is not only a matter of general interest, but also an important
addition to our knowledge of plant geography.

“ For more than a century the long line of the Hima-laya, from Kashmir to
Bhutan, has been known as one of the World’s richest treasuries of flowers.
Slowly from time to time the hidden valleys revealed their wealth, until it
seemed that the storehouse must be empty. Plant collectors then turned to
different fields.

“It is true that there is scarcely a plant of high altitudes in the Eastern
Himalaya that does not adorn our gardens. Only by a close comparison of
lists of Sikkim plants with garden catalogues can one appreciate how much
our gardens owe to the flora of that region.

“From the Western Himalaya, Kashmir, Garhwal and Kumaon, fewer
plants have come, and we have been accustomed to look eastwards, away
from this drier region, for luxuriance of plant life

“Mr. Smythe has drawn our attention again to the west; it is not without
justification that he names the Bhyundar Valley ‘The Valley of Flowers.’ It
is as rich as, and probably richer than, any valley in Sikkim. This valley, and
the country around it and beyond it, is in a region which has not had much
attention from botanists and plant collectors.

“While on the one hand some of the plants are not confined to the west
but occur throughout the whole Himalaya, on the other hand there are many
which occur only within a limited range and do not extend far eastwards,
penetrating only a little way into Nepal, Mr. Smythe ’s collection is the more
interesting because it contains mainly plants with a restricted distribution
and very few of those which extend to Sikkim.”

Being a gardener and not a botanist I looked at the flora through a
gardener’s eyes. The principal points that struck me were firstly the power
that many plants possess to adapt themselves to varying conditions and
altitudes. I have already mentioned in the text that I found a balsam growing
eight feet high at 7,000 feet and as many inches high at 14,000 feet. Such
flowers should be able to adapt themselves to the British climate. It is, I
maintain, wrong to define a plant as hardy from a garden standpoint because
it flourishes at great altitudes, for it must be remembered that such plants
exist under more equable conditions than flowers indigenous to Britain ;
they are covered with snow for the greater part of the year and exposed to
genial warmth during the summer months. For this reason they are difficult
to grow in a country such as ours which varies in its climate between a
muggy Christmas and sharp frosts in May. I see, however, no reason to
suppose that flowers from elevations of 7,000 to 13,000 feet should not
flourish in Britain, and I dare venture the prophecy that they will more
readily adapt themselves to the vicissitudes of the British climate than the
flowers of Sikkim which have added so greatly to the beauty of British
gardens, for the reason that the spring, summer and autumn climate of
Garhwal is far less extreme in temperature and rainfall than the climate of
Sikkim. I have already compared the midsummer climate of the Bhyundar
Valley with the midsummer climate of Britain and the similarity is
significant to gardeners.

Secondly, as a gardener I was intensely interested in the cycle of growth
in the Bhyundar Valley, and it seems to me that many valuable lessons are to
be learnt from it ; I wish now that I had made it an intensive study. I refer to
the manner in which flowers grow in association one with another. In the
halcyon days to come when gardeners will renounce the formal herbaceous
border in favour of the natural garden the study of association and rhythm in
plant life will receive the attention it deserves. Anyone can cultivate an
herbaceous border, but to grow a natural garden is an art and a science I
have hesitated to refer to what I mean as a wild garden, for this suggests
something completely untamed and composed largely of weeds. The natural
garden is necessarily composed to a great extent of flowers and grasses and
has no formal limitations. To achieve such a desirable end we must study
flowers in far greater detail than we need do when we plant an herbaceous
border, for we must not only copy and emulate Nature but adapt her to our
particular needs. Thus, in the Bhyundar Valley I saw ground that was so
closely packed with fritillaries that it seemed impossible that other plants
could grow, yet when the fritillaries had died down they were succeeded by

other plants such as potentiltas which grew equally densely. And this cycle
persisted through-out the summer, one plant being replaced by another with
perfect precision. It seemed to me also that the time factor was not the only
factor but that soil and association must enter into it. Why is it, for instance,
that the purple orchis which grows in the Bhyundar Valley loves the near
presence of thistles? Is it possible that there is some interacting effect of
nourishment, or some rhythmical effect not as yet properly understood? A
vast subject awaits the natural gardener in this direc-tion, and there is no
doubt to my mind that it is one of intense interest, for it brings us in touch,
as no ordinary gardening can, with the marvellous rhythm of Nature.

The soil is another complex factor. Dr. Cowan very kindly had a sample
of soil surrounding the roots of Nomocharis oxypetala analysed and the
analyst’s report was that: “It is slightly acid (pH = 6-26) and moderately
fertile as far as the amounts of available plant food are concerned. It has a
large amount of organic matter, the loss on ignition being 33-8 per cent.”

From this and my own observations I suggest that the flowers of Garhwal
are likely to flourish in a light soil with plenty of organic matter present, i.e.
leaf-mould and peat-mould which is sharply drained and, almost needless to
say, exposed to full sunlight.

I cannot close these brief notes without thanking Dr. Cowan for the
immense help he afforded me. I was about to leave England with no other
idea but to do a little desultory seed collecting when I met him. Shortly
afterwards I found my luggage augmented with about a hundredweight of
presses, drying papers and seed envelopes, and it seemed that my ambition
of travelling light had received a serious setback. I can only write now that
the trouble was very well worth while and that I now realise what I have
missed in the past. Merely to travel in a district such as the Himalayas
without some additional interest, whether it be surveying, geology,
anthropology or botany, is to miss one of the vital interests of a region that
abounds in beauty and interest.

PLANTS FROM THE BHYUNDAR
VALLEY AND NEIGHBOURHOOD
COLLECTED IN 1937

PLANTS FRO M T FI E BHYUND A R
VALLEY AND NEIGHBOURHOOD
COLLECTED IN 1937

Ranunculaceae

Clematis montana Buch.-Harn. (Virginia Bower)
grata Wall.

Anemone rupicola Camb. (Wind-flower)
obtusiloba D. Don
rizmlam Buch. -Ham.
polyanthes D. Don

Tkalictrum elegans Wall, (Meadow Rue ; Tufted Colum-
bine)

cultratum Wall.

Chelidonii DC,
paucifloTum Royle

Callianthemum cachemirianum Camb.

Ranunculus hyper bonus Rottb. (Crowfoot ; Buttercup)
hirtellus Royle

Caltka palm iris Linn. (Marsh Marigold)
scaposa Hook, f, et Thoms.

Trollius acaulis Lindl. (Globe Flower)

Par a quite gia grandiflora Drumm. ct Hutch.

Aquilegia pubijlora Wall. (Columbine)

Delphinium denudatum Wall, (Larkspur)
densijlorum Duthie
Brunonianum Royle

Aconitum heterophyllum Wall. (Wolf's-bane ; Monkshood)
Actaea spicala Linn. (Toad-root, Baneberry ; Herb Christo-
pher)

Berberideae

Berberis arist&ta DC. (Barberry ; Jaundice Berry)

Papaveraceae

Meconopsis aculeata Royle (Blue Poppy)

Fumariaceae

Coiydalis cachemiriana Royle (Fumatory)
comuta Royle
Govaniana Wall.

Moorcroftiana Wall.
meifolia Wall.

Cruciferae

Arabis auriculata Lara. (Wall Cress ; Rock Cress)
amplexicaulis Edgew.

Draba lasiopkylla Royle (Whitlow Grass)

Erysimum rapandum Linn. (Alpine Wallflower ; Hedge
Mustard)

Capsella Bursa-pastoris Medic.

Violaceae

Viola biflora Linn. (Violet)

Caryophylleae

Gypsophila cerastioides D. Don (Chalk Plant)

Silene Cucubalus Wibel. (Campion ; Catchfly)

Moorcroftiana Wall.

Lychnis apetala Linn. (Campion ; German Catchfly ; Rose
Campion)

Cerastium glomeratum Thuill. (Snow in Summer ; Snow
Plant)

Armaria kashmirica Edgew. (Sandwort)
musciformis Wall.
glanduligera Edgew.

Hypericineae

Hypericum elodeoides Chois. (Aaron’s Beard ; St, John’s Wort)
Geraniaceae

Geranium pratense Linn. (Crane’s-bill)
cotlinum M. Bieb.

Wallichianum Sweet
Grevilleanum Wall.

Impatiens Rqylei Walp. (Balsam)
sulcata Wall.

Thomsoni Hook. f. et Thoms.
scabrida DC.

Sapindaceae
Acer caesium Wall. (Maple)

Leguminosae

Piptanthus nepalensts D. Don (Nepal Laburnum)

Thermopsis barbata Royle

Parochetus communis Buch.-Ham. (Blue-flowered Shamrock)
Trigonella corniculata Linn. (Fenugreek)

Guldenstaedtia kimalaica Baker
Astragalus chlorostackys Lindl. (Milk Vetch)
himalayanus Klotzsch
Candolleanus Royle.

Pueraria ptduncularis Grah.

Rosaceae

Spiraea Aruneus Linn (Meadow Sweet)
bella Sims
canescens D. Don
Geum datum Wall. (Avens)

Potentilla Sibbaldi Hall, f. (Cinquefoil)
fruticosa Linn.

„ var. Inglisii Hook. f.
ambigua Camb.
eriocarpa Wall.
polypkylla Wall.

Leschenaultiana Ser.
peduncularis D. Don
leuconota D. Don
micropkylla D. Don
argyrophylla Wall.

„ var. atrosanguinea Hook. f.

,, var leucochroa Hook. f.

Agrimonia Eupatoria Linn.

Rosa macrophylla Lindl. (Rose)
sericea Lindl.

S or bus foliolosa Spach

Cotoneaster rotundifolia Wall. (Quince-leaved Medlar ; Rose
Box)

Saxifragaceae

Astilbe rivularis Buch.-Ham. (False Goat’s-beard)

Saxifraga cernua Linn. (Rockfoil ; London Pride)

Hirculus Linn.
diversifolia Wall.

Jacquemontiana Dene.
jimbriata Wall.

Flagellaris Willd.

Parnassia nubicola Wall. (Grass of Parnassus)

Bergenia Stracheyi Engl.

Ribes glaciale Wall. (Red Currant)

Crassulaceae

Sedum Rhodiola DC. (Stonecrop)

heterodontium Hook. f. et Thoms.
crenulatum Hook. f. et Thoms.
tibeticum Hook. f. et Thoms.

„ var. Stracheyi (Hook f. et Thoms.)
quadrifidum Pall.
asiaticum DC.
trifidum Wall.

Sempenivum mucronatum Edgew. (House-leek)

Onagraceae

Epilobium latifolium Linn. (Willow Herb)
origanifolium Lamk.

Umbelliferae

Bupleurum longicaule Wall. (Hare’s-ear)

Anthriscus nemorosa Spreng. (Chervil)

Cortia Lindleyi DC.

Pleurospermum Candollii Benth.

Caprifoliaceae

Viburnum erubescens Wall. (Guelder Rose ; Snowball Tree)
Lonicera obovata Royle (Honeysuckle)

Rubiaceae

Galium acutum (Edgew.)

Asperula odorata Linn, (Woodruff ; Squinancy-wort)

Valeri aneae

Etardostackys Jatamansi DC.

Valeriana dioica Linn. (Cretan Spikenard)

Dipsaceae

Morina longifolia Wall. (Whorl-flower)

Compositae

Solidago Virgaurea Linn. (Golden Rod)

Aster diploslephioides Benth, (Starwort ; Michaelmas Daisy)
Erigeron alpinus Linn. (Fleabane)
multiradiatus Benth.

Muroglossa albescens Clarke (Shrubby Starwort)

Leontopodium himalayanum DC. (Edelweiss)

Jacotianum Beauv.
monocephalum Edgew.

Anapkalis nubigena DC. (Pearly Everlasting or Immortelle)
cuneifolia Hook. f.
contorta Hook. f.

Carpesium cernuum Linn.

Siegesbeckia orientals Linn.

Allardia glabra Dene.

tomentosa Dene.

Tanacdum nubigenum Wall. (Tansy ; ATtecost)

Artemisia Roxburghiana Besser (Old Man ; Old Woman ;
Lad’s Love)

Cremanthodium Decaisnei Clarke
arnicoides Good

Senecio chrysanthemoides DC. (Jacobaea ; Cineraria ; Rag-
wort)

diversifaiius Wall.

Ligularia Hook, f,
quinquelobus Hook. f. et Thoms.

Saussurea obvallata Wall. (Saw-wort)
piptanthera Edgew.
hypoleuca Spreng.
sorocephala Hook. f. et Thoms.

Gerbera Kunzeana Braun, et Asch. (Barberton or Transvaal
Daisy)

Lactuca dissecta D. Din (Lettuce)
macrorrhiza Hook. f.

Lessertiana Clarke

Campanulaceae

Codonopsis rotundxjolxa Benth. (Bellwort)

Cyananthus lobatus Wall.

micropkyllus Edgew.

Campanula lalifolia Linn. (Bellflower)
cashmiriana Royle
aristata Wall.

modesta Hook. f. et Thoms.

Ericaceae

Gaultkeria trichophylla Royle (Canada Tea ; Creeping Winter-
green)

Cassiope fastigiata D. Don.

Rhododendron campanulatum D. Don
lepidotum Wall.
anthopogon D, Don

Primulaceae

Primula denticulata Sm.

Heydei Watt.
involucrata Wall.
elliptica Royle.
macrophylla D. Don
Wigramiana W. W. Sm.

Androsace primuloides Duby (Rock Jasmine)

Chamaejasme Host. var. uniflora Hook. f.
Poiss o?iii R. Knuth

Oelaceae

Jasminum humiie Linn, (Jasmine)

Synnga Emodi Wall.

Gentianaceae

Gentiana tenella Fries (Gentian)
argentea Royle
cachemirica Dene,
venusta Wall.
tubijlora Wall.

Pleurogyne carinthiaca Griseb.

Swertia purpurascens Wall. (Marsh Felwort)
pulchella Buch.-Ham.

PoLEMONIACEAE

Polemonium caeruleum Linn. (Jacob’s Ladder ; Greek Vale-
rian)

Borangineae

Cy no gloss urn glochidiatum Wall.

Hackelia ghchidiata Brand

Eritrichium strictum Dene. (Fairy Borage ; Fairy Forget-me-
not)

Mynsotis sylvaiica HofFm. (Forget-me-not)

Marcrotomia perennis Boiss,

Scophularinteae

Verbascum Tkapsus Linn. (Mullein ; Aaron’s Rod)

Mazus surculosus D. Don
Picrorhiza Kurrooa Bentli.

Veronica deltigera Wall. (Speedwell)
ktmalensis D. Don
capitata Benth,

Euphrasia officinalis Linn.

Pedicularis siphenantha D. Don
bicomuta Klotzsch
pectinata Wall.
porrecta Wall.

Roylei Maxim.

Acaxthaceae

Strobilanthes Wallichii Nees (Cone-head)

Labiatae

Elsholtzia eriostachy Benth.

Origanum vulgar e Linn. (Sweet Marjoram)

Thymus Serpyllum Linn. (Thyme)

Calamintha Clinopodium Benth. (Calamint , Basil Thyme)
Nepeta eriostachy s Benth. (Catmint)

Scutellaria prostrata Jacquem. (Helmet Flower ; Skull Cap)
Brunella vulgaris Linn.

S tacky s sericea Wall. (Woundwort ; Chinese Artichoke)
Lamium album Linn. (White Dead Nettle)

Phlomis bracteosa Royle (Jerusalem Sage)

PoLYGONACEAE

Polygonum delicatulum Meissn, (Knot Weed)
jilicayle Wall.
viviparum Linn.
affine D. Don
vacciniifolium Wall.
polystackyum Wall.
rumicifolium Royle
Oxyria digvna Hill

Euphorbiaceae
Euphorbia pilosa Linn. (Spurge)

CuPULIFERAE

Betula utilus D. Don (Birch Tree)

Salicineae

Salix elegans Wall, (Willow ; Osier)
fiabellaris Anderss.

CONIFERAE

Juniperus WalUchiana Hook, f, et Thoms. (Juniper)

Abies Pindro Spach (Silver Fir)

Orchideae

Orchis latifolia Linn.

Chusua D. Don
Platanthera acuminata Lindl.

Cypripedium himalaicum Roife (Lady’s Slipper)

S CIT AMIN E AE

Roscoea alpina Royle

Haemodorageae

Aletris nepalensis Hook. f.

Ophiopogon. intermedius D. Don (Snake’s-beard)

Iridead

Iris kumaomnsis Wall. (Flag)

Liliaceae

Polygonatum Hookeri Baker (Solomon’s Seal)
verticillatum All.

Smilacina pallida Royle (False Spikenard)

Allium humile Kunth (Onion)

Nomocharis oxypetala Balf. f.

nana E. H. Wils.

Fritillaria Roy lei Hook. (Fritillary)

Lloydia serotina Reichb. var. unifolia Franch. (Mountain
Spiderwort)

tibetica Baker

Gagea lutea Schultz f. (Yellow Star of Bethlehem)

CUntonia alpina Kunth

Trillium Govanianum Wall. (American Wood Lily)
JUNCAECEAE

Jmcus membranaceus Royle
cortinnus D, Don

Aroideae

Arisaema Wattichiamm Hook. f. (Arum)

Jaiquenwnlii Blume

Cyperaceae
Kolbesia laxa Boeck.

Carex obscura Nees. (Blue-grass ; Sedge)
fuscata Boott
nivalis Boott

„ „ var. cinnamomea Kukenth.

inanis Kunth

Gramineae
Phleum alpinum Linn

Filices

Adianhim venustum D. Don (Maidenhair Fern)

Cry pi gramme crispa R. Br. (Parsley Fem ; Rock Brake)
Pteris crefica Linn, (Bracken)

Asplenium Truhornanes Linn. (Lady Fern)

Jspidium Prescottianum Hook, (Wood Fern)

Nephrodium Brunmiamtn Hook. (Buckler Fern)
Polypodium clatkratum Clarke (Oak Fern ; Beech Fem)
ebenipes Hook.

Botrychium Lunaria Sw. (Moon Fern ; Flowering Fern)

APPENDICES

The best exposure meter would be a photo-electric meter calibrated to
allow for the increase in the ultra-violet.

Filters are necessary at low elevations, and particu-larly when
photographing in the foothills, where haze is frequently present, especially
before the monsoon, but they are neither necessary nor desirable when
photographing snow scenes at great altitudes, unless the photographer
wishes to bring out distances with especial clarity or aims at dramatic sky
effects. Many photographs in the past taken by Himalayan expedi-tions
depict scenes over-filtered to a bizarre degree ; the photographs of the earlier
Mount Everest expeditions are _ cases in point, and the effects are similar to
a flashlight photograph, with light grey rocks, dead white snow and black
skies. Such photography is, of course, a matter of taste, but most
photographers aim at repro-ducing Nature as faithfully as possible and abhor
over-emphasis at the expense of tone values.

I was ill-equipped for flower photography and would suggest that anyone
who wishes to photograph the flora of the Himalayas should go into the
question of long-and short- focus lenses very carefully.

Colour photography demands a technique different in many respects to
black and white photography. I discovered this at the cost of much wasted “
Koda-chrome.” Lighting must be studied from an altogether different angle ;
it is colour that counts, not lighting effects, and colour is only reproduced
perfectly when reflected at right- angles or nearly so from the subject. Thus
pictures taken into the light are valueless, with the exception of dawn and
sunset pictures where the sun is partially or wholely concealed ; incidentally,
the finest colour picture I obtained was a sunset picture taken at 20,000 feet
on Dunagiri. Even composition

is not so important in colour photography as the correct lighting of the
subject, though needless to say it is as much worth studying as it is in black
and white photography.

Fron a technical standpoint colour photography with “ Kodachrome “ is
almost as easy as with ordinary film ; there is less latitude in the matter of
exposure, but the photographer can ensure success by taking two or three
pictures of the same subject at varying exposures. I would strongly advocate
the use of a haze filter when photographing with “ Kodachrome “ in the
Himalayas, for the blues in this district are very intense and become still
more so at high altitudes owing to the excess of ultra-violet light in the
atmosphere.

Lastly, I can conceive of no more delightful record of a mountain holiday
than a set of “ Kodachrome “ photographs which, when mounted between
glass, can be used as lantern-slides, though it should be remem-bered that
heat, and to a lesser degree intense light, is detrimental to this process and
that a bulb illuminant of moderate heat and power should be used and the
picture shown for not more than fifteen seconds to half a minute.